Last week I played my first EVER game of D&D, and hoo boy. I have THOUGHTS.
But first, check out the cool loot we got!
Our friend Charlie just played *his* first game of D&D at Dragon Con last year, and was immediately hooked. He's been planning this game ever since, and used his Glow Forge to make each of us players our own custom dice box:
(The Figment one is John's, and that's a badger face on Karen's.)
Our friends Dennis & Bonnie each got their own artwork laser-etched on their boxes:
That lid part comes down, and look how cool:
(I'm pretty sure Charlie will make you your own custom box like this, btw, so check out his account!)
I should mention everyone at the table was a total D&D noob, but Charlie really did his homework as DM. He even made character tokens for each of us with his own art:
(I know it looks like we're all dudes, but the 4 in the center are actually female. ;))
Ok, now let's talk about the actual game! We played a whopping 6 hours, I think, but it felt like a lot less - which should already tell you something.
I... liked it. I think. Yes. But I also screwed up something early on and made it awkward, and then I got frustrated, and then it got better and we ended with a lot of laughs - but maybe I don't have the right personality for this?
Let me back up.
The best part was figuring out a quick backstory for John's and my characters with Charlie. I decided to play a halfling barbarian raised by Goliaths, so she's 3-feet tall, but thinks everyone ELSE is short. She's spunky, low intelligence, likes to fight, and is fiercely loyal to her big brother, a Goliath Druid played by John.
The two of them have a third sibling, Catherine, who WAS a Goliath but accidentally turned herself into a cat.
And just for maximum confusion/hilarity, my character's name is Kat.
Family portrait:
Did John use the line, "This is my sister, Kat, and this is my other sister, Cat"?
HECK YES HE DID.
HECK YES HE DID.
Anyway, like I said, I've never played D&D before - but I *have* watched literally hundreds of hours of the Critical Role cast playing it. So I felt reasonably comfortable going in.
The trouble started when our characters were hired by yet another cat (the furry kind) who immediately rubbed me and John the wrong way. The cat was arrogant and patronizing (kept calling me "girl"), and insinuated he knew all our party secrets while laughing at us really nastily.
I figured this cat HAD to be a villain, so when he and John's character got into an argument and the cat scratched up his arm, I - naturally, playing the part of the protective barbarian sister - TRIED TO KILL THE FREAKING CAT.
It... did not go well.
(Dangit)
After my failed assassination attempt and realizing I wasn't *supposed* to kill the cat (oops), we went on to infiltrate a gnomish underground city, fight a monster mimic, and steal/charm the gnomes into giving us a bunch of cool stuff. And it turned out the cat WAS shady, so I at least had the comfort of more of my party wanting to commit caticide with me later.
Anyway, I really liked watching my friends try out their characters and talk through all the obstacles and dungeon puzzles. Playing the tank of the group was also super fun, since I got the final blow in our fight with the mimic!
Anyway, I really liked watching my friends try out their characters and talk through all the obstacles and dungeon puzzles. Playing the tank of the group was also super fun, since I got the final blow in our fight with the mimic!
Charlie couldn't find his Mimic mini, so he's angrily pointing at the substitute here, lol
John and I don't have the time to make regular D&D games a thing, but I'm glad we tried it, and I definitely understand the appeal now. If we ever play again I think I'll just have to work on tamping down my sense of justice and overall bloodlust, ha.
You guys gave me so much great advice before we played, and I loved hearing your stories! So go on, give me your best Awkward Moment While Playing D&D - maybe that'll make me feel better about trying to kill the DM's cat. ;)
John and I don't have the time to make regular D&D games a thing, but I'm glad we tried it, and I definitely understand the appeal now. If we ever play again I think I'll just have to work on tamping down my sense of justice and overall bloodlust, ha.
You guys gave me so much great advice before we played, and I loved hearing your stories! So go on, give me your best Awkward Moment While Playing D&D - maybe that'll make me feel better about trying to kill the DM's cat. ;)
On the other hand, have any of you tried D&D (or another role-playing game) and decided it's not for you? Gimmie the deets, I want to know!
*****
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I tried D&D once, for a dear friend's birthday. He did a questionnaire with each of us to determine our characters, and mine was dead on - a halfling bard. All of that was fine, but I felt so awkward and uncomfortable every time I had to speak in character that I could never just settle down and enjoy the game. Apparently role playing is not my comfort zone.
ReplyDeleteI roleplay with my husband and a few friends. And we used to have a GREAT group and I really got into my groove with it. So when a second group invited us to join I was all in. But the new group we are in, I feel a lot more self conscious to speak up or suggest anything. So please don't write off roleplaying from one awkward night, it may not be the right group.
Deletesidenote: both groups are good friends of mine, so that wasn't the problem. Just one group I was a lot more comfortable being silly and suggesting stuff because we just clicked better. I think it has to do with who is trying to take charge of the group that changes the dynamic of how the group feels.
Also, it took me a few times playing the game to get into it as well. The first night I kept saying "I guess I will...." and everyone was saying "no, what would your character do? Not what would you do!"
Speaking as someone who's been playing D&D for multiple decades...if the DM doesn't want players to attack his NPCs, then he shouldn't have his NPCs physically attack the players.
ReplyDelete(I mean, generally speaking, attacking NPCs is bad for your health, but it's not like you did something completely unprovoked.)
But when it comes down to it, sometimes a DM and a player don't mesh, no matter how good of friends you are. I would suggest playing with a different DM - do they have gaming cons in your area with Adventurer's League games? That's where I've been doing a lot of playing lately, and it gives you the chance to try the game out with different people and get a feel for your own play style. (They also have non-D&D TTRPGs, and it might just be that you'd have more fun with a different one, so that would give you a chance to try.)
I don't remember everything but my Goliath didn't like something the cat did and tried to gently grab him by the scruff so I think I attacked first. Unfortunately, I rolled a natural 1. It was a comedy of bad rolls.
DeleteHey Jen! I'm so happy you and Jon gave D&D a try. I remember the first time I played, I was 11-12 and my brother and his highschool friends had a campaign together that I was allowed to play a minor character in.
ReplyDeleteThanks to his introduction, my love of table tops games has stuck with me over the years. I'm more of a fan of the improve/role playing aspect but with more practice I'd be okay with the math portion of my rolls/checks.
The most awkward situation I can remember was when I played in a 7th Sea campaign (Pirate D&D basically). My now-ex was running the show and I thought it would be hilarious to play a "dashing gentleman". He was a self-titled hero, very tall, clumsy, and always trying to hit on the ladies.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I ruined that campaign for the other players because I never really gave much depth to my character and awkwardly fumbled about making every situation an opportunity for my character's "quirkiness" to shine.
My advice to newer players out there, if your character has a strong hubris (like being conceited) establish a reason for that behavior and balance it out with a positive trait that can be expanded upon via in-game role play. (Ex. I should have made my character conceited because he was a good swordsman- not because he thought himself to be "the best".
I personally feel that hubris for the sake of hubris in most situations makes it difficult for other players to relate to your character.
I hope you get another chance to play your characters again, I've found that it takes me a few games to really settle into a character.
I agree with most of this, and especially the point you made about your own campaign. You don't have to write a 20-page essay on every aspect of your character, but coming up with a background, a motivation, and reasoning for their primary traits and how they fit into said backstory will make the game more fun for you, the other players, and your DM. And I promise, every time you play them, /you/ will discover new things about them along with everyone else. It's a great journey.
Delete(Great, now I want to try to find a D&D group in my area. I haven't played in YEARS.)
I have, slightly bizarrely, never played a D&D type game, but have been a silent observer of quite a few non-professional ones. But my experience is very limited, so take all this with a grain of salt.
DeleteI agree that it's generally good to have balanced characters rather than inexplicable single-dimension ones, but I think the nugget of your don't-make-others-miserable rule might be "don't try to upstage everyone and/or the game itself" - even if one of your character's traits is "trying to upstage people," do not let them take the mic all the time; indicate that trait by quality rather than quantity, or establish something early on that shuts your character up when your character starts doing that, or *something* so the game can be more of a co-created experience and less of a "vehicle" for your character. It's likely fine, in game, if all the other players' characters hate your character and *cannot* understand why your character is the way they are (but you want to make sure that dislike is limited to the other players' characters' view of your character, not the other players' view of you, and some groups can manage that and others may not be as good at it).
I mean, you're always going to have a bit of a mix of personalities in any given game, and some will be more inclined to take on more of the role-play heavy lifting, and some will only want to do that occasionally, but the main thing is to let everyone play, including the DM, rather than forcibly turning everyone else (and all the situations you get into) into Supporting Cast for your character's Starring Role, even if it's personality-wise spot-on for your character to want to be or try to be The Star.
(how to do that successfully while role-playing, if your character's personality is the "want to be the star" type, I do not personally how to do, but I've seen it done, so I believe it *can* be done! :-) But if any newbies out there also do not already know how to do that, then maybe dodge including "annoying and loud all the time" in your character's personality traits. And if you tend to want to take the mic all the time in general, then maybe try to restrain that a bit, at least until you get the feel for the general rhythm of the group.)
I don’t have the patience or memory for D&D but we’re very slowly playing through an rpg called Gloomhaven, and I told my husband that I feel like I got tricked into playing D&D.
ReplyDeleteAs a player, there's no such thing as "not supposed to do X," or at least there shouldn't be. You may have done something the DM didn't /expect/, but D&D is collaborative storytelling, and if you think your character would have tried to kill the cat in that situation, then you did exactly the right thing, IMO. Even if it didn't go well. ;)
ReplyDeleteThis does lead me to another point though. I think the best way to enjoy D&D is if you can get comfortable in character, so that you're not weighing up "Is this what /I/ think I should do? Is this what the DM expects me to do? Is this going to move the story forward," and can just go with, "I have a good feel for this character I created, and she would totally stay in the tavern drinking ale until 4 am and then make her fellow party members drag her on a litter half-conscious the next day from over-imbibing." The DM's job from that point is to decide how your actions affect the story. Sure, a DM should always have a basic outline, but the good DMs know that Leonard Snart's (from the Flash, for those who don't watch) policy is the best for DMs: "Make a plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails. Throw away the plan." Speaking from personal experience, the sessions I've played that were the absolute most fun were the ones where the party very much didn't do as the DM expected/planned for, and the whole session was kind of made up on the fly with everyone telling a story together.
Yay, Snart!
DeleteSo much this! I'm lucky enough to have learned from really experienced players and DMs who were always very good about whatever crazy character I came up with.
DeleteJust going to say: It's totally fine if D&D isn't for you, but if you're interested in trying it more, a lot of DMs have different styles, and other ttrpgs can feel completely different. Some of them are apocalyptic, super hero games, or even games where you play as bears stealing honey. Seriously, there are tabletops for everything.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, the first time I ran a game, it was a disaster. I didn't know anyone in the party and was completely out of my depth. I made the mistake of letting one of my players be a chaotic evil barbarian, then telling him about a weapon that was just a skull filled with rats. He immediately wanted to create one--with any nearby NPC who stood still long enough to get murdered. They were only supposed to be picking up a basic quest, but they didn't go near it and I had no idea what to do. The barbarian managed to kill a townsperson (then tried to adopt the townsperson's son), and the rest of the party was obviously unhappy. I almost had one player killed by the others before they even left the first town or got the first quest.
I don't play with those guys anymore (we were interns together and I don't work there any more), and I've gotten much better as a DM. It's incredibly fun to build a feel for how to build an emotionally compelling story with your players. Also, it sounds like you reacted the way any normal new player would (and, heck, I still might. Sounds like the cat was a jerk). I'm sorry it was frustrating, but there's nothing to be ashamed of.
I've played several tabletop RPGs (D&D, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Star Wars, Wheel of Time, Homebrew) and I think the biggest thing for new players to remember -PCs & DMs/GMs alike- is that its a game. That means the most important thing is that everyone is enjoying it. You are all crafting this story together (with the dice as well) so the moment anyone tries to make the game about them (their story, their character, their moment) is when it usually goes downhill or gets awkward. No offense to Jen or anyone else, but I've noticed that people with anxiety issues tend to have a habit in making things about themselves. The thing to remember in an instance like this is that everyone else probably either forgot about your embarrassing moment as they got into the game or will later think of it as a funny tale in their gaming experiences. Hopefully, one of many.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Jen, I don't know a single player who hasn't played in a game where someone (or even the whole party) attacked a 'suspicious' NPC who they later realized they weren't meant to attack or was never even a threat to begin with. ^_^ At least you had a solid, character driven reason for the action. If you did it just to get ahead or for the sake of earning XP, then it might have annoyed your other players. As it was, it sounds like a typical game to me. I personally, always find it more fun when the other players can get into character like that and just roll with what happens rather than try to do what they think they need to in order to 'win the game'.
It sounds like your first time was a mixed bag, but you should definitely play again! I often play with intergenerational groups (ages 10 to 55) and highly recommend it. Nothing you could ever do would be as ridiculous as some of the things the younger players come up with.
ReplyDeleteOnce some of the younger crew interrogated an innkeeper, who only existed to give us the quest, for an hour. Later the DM worked it into the story so that NPC was the big bad, even though that wasn't their original intention.
As other people have already mentioned, D&D is all about collaborative storytelling and having fun!
I've been playing tabletop RPG since the last century (also known as mid 90s) and found my best friends in there, so I don't need to say my view on the matter is a little less than impartial. However, I just would like to point out that though D&D is the ideal starting place to see if you like RPGs or not, there is a humungous quantity of games and worlds besides D&D. And in my experience, you can find groups with very different schedules from multple times a week to once a month. If you really want to give this a second try, you should try to find other groups and see what they feel like. (Though most probably won't have a talented artist as Charlie)
ReplyDeleteThe other important thing I found about tabletop is that people are there to have fun, so this should always be front and center in all campaingns. It shouldn't matter if your character does the "wrong" thing. Players should never feel frustraded for not guessing what the DM thought was the solution for the current problem.
I hope you try RPG more times, it's really an awesome experience.
back in the mid '70's I played a star trek game. I slaughtered off the crew of the Enterprise. I was a Romulan passing as a Vulcan. it was a LOT of fun for me torturing the crew and killing them off. oddly I wasn't asked back to play again. hmmm. well it was fun for me at least.
ReplyDeleteWe were *supposed* to be getting information from a dude about the mysterious thing that fell from the sky that was kicking off our quest, and we were SO BAD at the social encounter that we weren't getting the info we were supposed to be getting and nearly got our entire party arrested that the DM was like "You know what, you find out X and Y and the dude goes back inside and you scurry away before the police arrive." We're very good at combat encounters but for the love of god, do not make us role play social encounters.
ReplyDeleteI usually end up narrating my role play as opposed to actually role playing. "Character gets angry and demands to know what other character is doing here." The DM mostly allows it and it's a style that works better for me.
Bahaha! It's good to know this isn't always a natural skill set for other folks, too. :D
DeleteSounds like paladin would be the perfect class for you! The heightened awareness of fairness and a thirst for justice are built into the class already and they're essentially tanks as is. :D Extra bonus for some healing spells which are always welcome.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely recommend playing again! No such thing as not the right type of personality for D&D. If you can't swing a regular, weekly game (like CR), maybe try and talk your friends into a more "whenever everyone has time" kinda game? Just playing one-shot games with very little over-arching narrative can be a lot of fun too. I feel like a good example of a game like that is OutsideXbox/OutsideXtra's Oxventure (which you can also find on YouTube and I highly recommend).
Ooh, those dice boxes are nice! Love the character art as well. I've never played DnD before but have always wanted to.
ReplyDeleteI have never played D&D, and what little I know about it comes from comedy sketches. Reading through these comments confirms that this is definitely not the game for me - maybe it's one of those "you'll get it once you try it" situations, but I definitely can't imagine myself being able to get into it at all. But now I sort of feel like I should try it someday just so I understand what on earth you all are talking about. It's like another language. 😂
ReplyDeletefeel that! If you're curious to know more without actually playing, I'd recommend watching the Darington Brigade one-shot from the cast of Critical Role. It's hilarious, a complete quest in 4 hours, and will give you a great idea of how the game works in real time.
DeleteWe play as a family (mom/me, dad/dm, 16, 15 & 9). When we first started, we tried the starter pack - mostly to orient the kids with the game and mechanics. I ended up needing to join because they were getting stomped and the starter guide doesn't really have scaling tips/tools if you have a small party.
ReplyDeleteEveryone hated it. The characters didn't suit us, the game didn't suit the dm. It just chafed and no one wanted to play.
Then we spent an afternoon making new characters. Learning all the species, all skills, what could be. We came up with backstories. And now we WANT to play, even though scheduling is hard. When we started, it was, we'll play when we have time (never happened). We realized and began scheduling once a month, so that we would play.
If you like playing D&D - then carve the time out to play it. It doesn't always work (we are scheduling around soccer and teen work schedules, aka last minute) - but that just means it's a short game day instead of a marathon day.
Contempt and blood-lust are just part of your character's personality; don't worry about holding it down. :-)
ReplyDeleteSounds like it was a good introduction and your DM making dice towers and character pieces is amazing.
As long as everyone in the party is playing for the same reason(s) [to win, to solve puzzles, storytelling, socializing and/or drinking] then you should be able to have fun no matter how the game is going. Don't worry about making "mistakes" because sometimes what seems like an error leads you in a cool new direction. A good DM will make sure you can't do anything to doom the quest irrevocably. Don't sweat it. Have fun!
I was playing with a group in college and my roommate complete destroyed the new campaign in the first hour. We had bee playing regularly for a few months and had been leveling up our characters. She found a super one. We were supposed to travel to a troubled kingdom and get rid of the evil king. My roommate had been working on leveling a skill that if she concentrated on something it would blow up. She got so good at it she didn't even have to roll very high or be in close proximity of said object. So there we are figuring out our travel plans on how to get there when it comes to her turn. She says "I blow the king up" and rolled so well the poor DM couldn't do anything. The look on his face was so confused and flabbergasted. To his credit he quickly recovered and sent us off on another adventure, but he had to figure out how to work around her superpower moving forward.
ReplyDeleteHooray for a pretty good first game! Awkwardness when you're playing a new character is common, don't worry about it. You can come up with a new character if that wasn't a good fit, or keep trying with this. I think the only rule (besides, y'know, the book rules) is to come ready to have fun and don't be a jerk - Wheaton's Law, right? Don't make a rude character and use that as an excuse to not be nice to other players. I don't think you'd do that though =)
ReplyDeleteHusbot and I have been gaming since before we started dating - he runs the games, I'm the constant player across all our moves and we build a group from there. We play twice a month right now, my husband is big on stories (without railroading us) and sticking to a schedule so we actually finish games. We used to do weekly games but he's currently in night class for a law degree and too busy, plus some of our players can't meet 4 times a month. He plans it out with flexibility in the session for odd things our characters could do.
It's not always D&D(currently it is), but also Vampire The Masquerade or Requiem, Exalted, different settings in D&D - published or homebrew, Star Wars, Anima... there's lots to pick from.
I think a tank is a pretty easy ability set to start out with, no spells or special skills to remember. I'm playing a wizard right now, lots of spells to remember and decide which is best to use in which situation.
Not sure I can think of a specific awkward moment, but there have been some times where I've broken out in giggles - either over something I said or another player's - that took a while to break down from. Now my ten year old daughter is in the group (till we get to a too adult story/system, like upcoming Orpheus) and we've had to cut down on the grownup goofy innuendo, ha. Funny stuff still happens, and the PG stuff is whispered or mentioned in text later, if any.
I'm glad you had some fun your first game, and look forward to hearing more about other possible adventures! It's great that your friend who DM'd was able to put together some interested friends - my mom's been interested in playing for a while but doesn't know anyone else who wants a 60 year old player in their group. She doesn't live in our area or we might invite her to our group!
Done writing a book for now ^_^ Might message you more on Instagram ha!
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DeleteAs the Bard in this odd party I found it only appropriate to capture our adventure in verse to share while the mead is warm and the nights are cool:
ReplyDeleteWell,
Six of us strangers went on our first quest,
stopping by a hideout per the Gnome girl's request. For a year she was stuck as a statue and couldn't leave there, while a shady Cat guy sold her stuff and left fur everywhere.
We all argued for a bit but had to get on our way, to Gnomegard and treasures before the end of the day. They grew mushrooms and made wine but lived with fright, A monster in their tunnels was killing gnomes every night.
We searched high and low until the Mimic was found, acidic and angry we fought round and round. It was a savage battle and our Goliath went down, healed quickly by the Bard, as our team stood their ground.
The Gnome, Elf, and Halfling all performed heroic deeds, as the quiet Bird girl stood back and ate all her seeds. Dangerous puzzles solved on our way to their kings, as we eyed-up their treasury and some magical things.
Heroes we were but their treasury lock we picked, even handed more valuables after a charismatic trick. Back to the town to cash in and rest, eat and stock up, and prepare for our next quest!
Oh yeah, and the Goliath had butterfly wings for an hour, hilarious!
I started playing D&D soon after it came out. Over the years I've played other systems and genres and games, but I always come back to D&D. I dropped out of actively gaming for about 20 years after moving to the boonies, but finally the need for a creative outlet led to discovering online RPG gaming sites. So I started playing again... and eventually through a meet-up list found a live 3.5 game. Not my preferred edition, but I wanted some live playing.
ReplyDeleteThen I chanced to find an ad on Craigslist by someone looking to put together an old school D&D group. Second edition AD&D in this case -- and I mostly grew up on 1e AD&D. I jumped on it. The six strangers who met at a makerspace to roll up characters remains together over 4 years later. We clicked. If there's no game for some reason (such as when my laptop died and I was waiting for a replacement), we meet and play other tabletop games (everything from Flux to Unstable Unicorns to Catan to Lords of Waterdeep, and more). We're determined to keep our group together, because that kind of chemistry can be hard to find. It's an hour's drive for me to get to the game, and always worth it. :)
As far as speaking "in character" goes, I've been DMing our group for the past couple years, and honestly, it's very hit or miss whether my NPCs speak in character: I'm shy. Speaking in character even as a player can be very hard for me. Accents are almost impossible, since as a rule I just don't have the nerve. It hasn't stopped us from having fun. So we're not CR-level in that area -- that's not necessary to have fun.
I recently started playing DDAL games at my local library. As much as I enjoy watching CR and some other live play games, 5e will never be my preferred edition. However, for the chance to play locally, and maybe get into a local group, I'll play whatever's on the table. Of course, amid mostly strangers, my RPing hasn't been all that great. (Not that the Adventurer's League games have a lot of room in them for RPing, even if I weren't too shy to do so.) Eventually, I'll get comfortable with the more regular players/DMs, but for now, I'll settle for playing somewhat flat characters instead of triggering panic attacks by trying too hard to role play my characters completely "in character."
-- Kit
I started playing D&D close to half a century ago... So I could tell you hilarious stories about how a 1st level thief with a dagger will lose to a commoncommon house cat 2 goes out of 3. Like killed-dead, lose.
ReplyDeleteInstead, I will point out that D&D is a gateway drug to playing in any world-scenario you like including a Ghost Busters 'toon adventure. Return to Hogwarts, and Minecraft Doctor Who crossover.
Come to the RPG dork side, my dear: we have doritos.
We play tabletop games every other weekend or so with a group of friends that are mixed between old high school buddies and newer friends we've picked up over the years. My husband almost always DM's for us, since he's too impatient to play in other people's games. We've done this for well over 20 years, even when I was going through chemo for breast cancer a few years back.
ReplyDeleteAbout 6 years ago, when we were living in an apartment, my husband and his friend (who is blind) were walking through the parking lot towards the apartment, talking about the game we were about to play. Suddenly, this absolutely massive Puerto Rican guy comes stomping up to the two of them, frowning, and yells, "Hey!" at them. All my husband can think is "Oh gawd, what did I do to this guy?? Did I accidentally cut him off?? How do I get Joe (the blind guy, who literally had no idea what was going on) out of the way before this guy swings at me?!"
Finally, the angry giant stops approaching and yells "Hey! Did I hear you were going to play Dungeons and Dragons??"
My husband, cautious, "Yyess?"
The giant, "Good. I've been looking for a group and would love to play. When can I join??"
Angry giant is now our very dear friend, and despite all of us moving in different directions, still offers to play D&D through the interwebs when he has time. :D
I once cast the spell Sleep in an area containing the monster we were fighting and our (usually very high health) dragonborn. Sleep affects the creature with the lowest HP first, and it turns out our dragonborn had taken more damage than I thought. I ended up putting him to sleep and not the monster, and very nearly getting him killed. Still feel bad for that one. But he survived! (And he's survived me almost killing him a few more times since then. Somehow I always roll badly when he's at risk)
ReplyDeleteNever played, quite content to get lost in watching CritRole and TalksMachina!
ReplyDeleteMy idea of a good time is games where you might have a few options of what to do on your turn but you only do ONE THING PER TURN. (IE Ticket to Ride: pick a card, lay track, pick an extra route.) Any more than one thing to do per turn and you've lost me.
ReplyDeleteMy catfolk ranger once climbed the outside of a gnomish house of ill repute to watch this guy who had been trailing and who had gone up to the third floor. Said guy started doing a ritual in some language none of us knew, completely with candles and a containment circle. Apparently, it was a pretty big ritual, because when I tapped the glass, it distracted him enough that he caught on fire and burned down the building.
ReplyDeleteHe was the only one killed. We hustled all the ladies of the evening and their customers out.
In our campaign, my Dragonborn Monk, who has a strong sense of justice, loves kids, and hates evil, took some time in the Fey to dance with some faeries. Turns out that by doing so, I caused a time jump in our campaigns world, and caused a bunch of evil stuff to go unchecked, leading to the deaths of thousands...millions...? oooops
ReplyDeleteBack in college, we had an ongoing (4+ years) campaign of Werewolf: the Apocalypse. During this campaign, I ended up with the tendency to kill characters that Should Not Have Been Dead (tm). My character had massive trust issues and was the warrior type, so it took our GM a couple tries to realize if we ended up with an unconscious villain, I would kill him. Mercilessly. And to our GM's credit, he let me! And he'd take the time to work his story around so that there would be another one. And, eventually, he stopped letting us have unconscious villains if they weren't supposed to die at that time. XD
ReplyDeleteHmm... We were playing a game with character classes we hadn't tried before and were doing pretty badly, so the GM decided to have an NPC Deity magically switch our classes round. I went from a Ranger to a Mage. Leaving the starting area we get ambushed, my char panics, shoots a fireball in the general direction of the mobs, rolls a 1...
ReplyDeleteThe Fireball hits one of the other players, who happened to be of a wolfish race - so, furry and flammable. His character gets rightfully annoyed, and goes to slap mine round the face, rolls a 20 (on a d20).
My character is immediately decapitated, and her head bounces merrily and rolls 50 yards down the road. Meanwhile his character desparately tried to put out the flames with a tiny puddle (spoiler - it didn't work).
And that's the story of how me and my bestie killed each other before we got out of the starting village. (Don't worry folks, that aforementioned NPC Deity resurrected us lol!)
I love D&D but my worst experience came from my first foray into Pathfinder. After a whole campaign where I had to put up with one player(the ranger) pissed at me for 'not playing my class right' and another(the cleric) pissed because my character didn't reciprocate his flirtations, we came to the final battle. As we fly to the site of our epic encounter, several of us see a symbol on the ground. Upon failing some saving rolls myself and another player(the witch) had been turned by the Big Bad, secretly at least IN CHARACTER. Out of character was another matter.
ReplyDeleteThe witch opens the fight by attacking the party, electrocuting everyone, myself included as she couldn't know In Character that I had turned with her. There is little response from the group as they are now focus on the Big Bad. On my turn as the bard I was there to buff and support so now as the unwitting minion of the Bad Guy I get ready to buff him... and the ranger with out a word fills me with arrows, despite there being no way he could have known I had been turned in character. Between the witch and the ranger's high level attacks I was downed though luckily not dead. I just needed the cleric to heal me. You can see where this is going.
I spend the culmination of over a year’s worth of gameplay bleeding out on the floor as the malformed manifestation of an Elder God STOOD ON TOP OF ME. My sole consolation was despite apparently being awful at my class, without me and my buffs/debuff the battle was a slow messy slog. At one point the DM sends me a private message and here is where I start to grin. Finally the battle is over and so to the campaign. We ended on the classic Where Are They Now montage to wrap up story plots and character arcs.
I let everyone else go first and when it was my turn? I did the whole Galadriel Dark Queen speech and inform them, as the DM had informed me midst the fight, that since I had been left prone within 5 feet of the Big Bad for more than 6 frickin’ rounds, he laid an egg in me. I would become the carrier of an unspeakable terror and upon it’s hatching we would undo all the good the party had done in this world and carry on those dark works. How’s that for not playing your class right.
I play a male firblog druid named Quartis who because he was the only party member that could disguise himself as a female via disguise self in a village known for weddings, obtained a wedding dress so he could sneak into places only a bride might go. It also strangely made this shy soul who the party frequently tries to sell (another story entirely) on a regular basis more intimidating. Perhaps too much fuzzy cleavage?
ReplyDeleteThere's also the time with my recent group where the party members realized my hermit ranger, only 19, knew nothing about the birds and the bees. They all agreed he needed to learn, but nobody felt comfortable with giving that talk. So instead he got shoved into a room with a very eager Lady of nocturnal hours who, after some struggling and it punch to the face (he panicked) just talked to him.
Probably the weirdest situation my D&D character has gotten into is when my Dwarven Druid found herself trying to pick a lock with a jellyfish tentacle, whilst wearing only her underwear. I don't remember what I rolled, but it wasn't enough to get us out of the jail cell! Ah, well.
ReplyDeleteMore recently, I've been doing live action role-playing, which is both very like and completely unlike D&D in a lot of ways - and while my first reaction was a lot like yours (I... liked it?), as I've gotten more comfortable, I've really come to love it. And just as in D&D, silly situations frequently occur - most recently, I confused the GM by unexpectedly trading my sword (which, technically, wasn't mine to give away) to a merchant for a magical item, with the result that now our party is going into the big final battles and I'm fighting demons with the equivalent of an eating dagger. I do a lot of running away... Good times.
Don't beat yourself up for doing something unexpected - that happens in every. single. game, from at home casual campaigns up to the level of Critical Role. It's part of the fun, and part of what differentiates D&D from a computer game - you can literally try anything you can think of, not just what's coded for you.
And bravo to you for trying something new, whether you ever do it again or not!
I played with a bunch of friends in grad school, where we ran a few campaigns with different characters and DMs. We were probably 2 nights into the first campaign when our elf managed to provoke the cleric and paladin into killing him. He spent the rest of night making up his new character. There was another one where I managed to shortcut a large part of the DMs quest for us. We were trying to track down who was kidnapping the local villagers, and came upon one of their vehicles. In theory, we were going to have to do a lot of work to figure out where the kidnappers' base was. However, the vehicle was powered by a wind elemental for cool effect...and I had randomly decided my character spoke elemental....so I just asked it where it was going and if it wouldn't mind taking us there. I think we wrapped up early that night because the DM hadn't planned that far ahead!
ReplyDeleteI've tried D&D/similar roleplaying games a few times, and I'm still pretty undecided on it! I think that it has a lot of potential to be fun, but I've struggled in the past with things like low energy/attention/focus (I am a person who zones out easily, but I've realized that the experience is a lot more fun if I'm really engaged) and making decisions that would make sense for a non-me character.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in trying again sometime, but I have a lot of other competing hobbies and interests, so it might be a while before it actually happens.
My brother taught my then-77 year old mother to play and she created a lawful good dwarvish wizard. She has proceeded to kill every "bad" character we came across "just to be sure". My chaotic neutral rogue kept asking to interrogate them first for useful intel but was overruled. We've stopped trying to explain what alignment really means and just sit back to listen to her debate which spell will do the most damage. As the DM, my brother tries to figure ways to get us the intel we needed from the now-dead NPCs.
ReplyDeleteHah, I would have done the same thing to the cat. :) My modus operandi is to attack first, never ask questions, which annoys the snot out of my dm. I even trained my fellow players to ask me if we were attacking this npc, to which the answer is always yes. Doesn't always go well for us, but that's part of what makes an encounter fun!
ReplyDeleteI was playing Hunter (monsters, natch), and my character was a protector and a single mother. My group had captured a vampire (as far as I can remember) and we were interrogating it in a basement. I blurted out that we were definitely going to kill him and annoyed the other players/DM. They were all my friends but I found I didn't really enjoy gaming with them as it was much different from my normal group. This was back when I was just getting into gaming so I don't know how it would go now. I should really find a group closer to me. Currently I travel 2 hours to visit friends and spend the afternoon gaming every couple weeks.
ReplyDeleteI've been playing D&D for almost 30 years. I'm such a gamer nerd that I have a tattoo of my dice set. My biggest "oops" that I can think of happened last year though. We were on a mountain trying to get down. After one of our party got stuck on an outcropping I told her "Just jump, I can use telekinesis to grab you and land you softly." Just after she jumped I realized "I cast... oh, wait, I don't have a 5th spell slot open. Umm, sorry?" She survived, and our group laughed about it for weeks after and my face always turned bright red. now I definitely make sure I have all the spells slots open that I need when I say I'm going to do something!
ReplyDeleteI have only played D&D once since college (and that was with my old DM when he was in town for a SciFi Convention), but really got into it while in college. One of my crazier characters was a little thief who was secretly a berserker. Whenever a fight started, she would throw herself in the middle of the fray, wildly wielding a knife. She died rather quickly. One January we played for hours everyday, after morning classes. My favorite (and last) character was an Elvin Prince 18th Level Bard --- it was boring after that.
ReplyDeleteOne more thing - I had my alliance changed from chaotic good to chaotic neutral when I tried to kill one of my fellow players... - he always played characters who were really evil and plotting behind everyone's back - but the DM said my character didn't know that. We also had to be careful what we chatted about between us - if we suggested something worse than what had actually happened, the DM might do it. Then there was always rolling the dice for "save vs. Dungeon Master" if we irritated him.
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