Over winter break I bought the D&D Starter Set. It came with a Player’s Book, a Dungeon Master’s Book, a nice dual-sided mat with external and dungeon settings, 6 standard RPG dice, a ton of punchout monster tokens, some little advertising leaflets (one of which gives the URL of a free downloadable quest), and some kinda handy power cards.
First off, it was discounted to ten bucks at a clearance sale in a calendar/puzzle-oriented popup store in a mall. Three days after Christmas. So yay for cheapness. There, I also bought some more dice. I have so many dice, it’s quite a sight. Good thing too.
When I got it home, I punched out the tiles, and the cards, and I read the Player’s Book and DM’s Book. Thankfully, I found some friends who said they’d play this game: two guys and a girl from my school, plus my brother. I started off by running my brother through the introductory “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” -style section of the Player’s Book, which is really the whole bloody thing. I did the same for one of the guys.
As of now, I’ve procured 4th edition PDFs of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Player’s Handbooks 1 and 2, and Monster Manual III. I expect to use the Adventurer’s Vault soon, and I have yet to use the Manual of the Planes or the Martial Power expansion PDFs.
I read the DM’s Guide and PHB1/2 out of order, and here’s why:
- The Starter Set has 4 basically pre-built races/archetypes. Yes, it’s for getting beginner players introduced to the game mechanics. However, my brother is a very quick-witted boy for someone 5 years younger than me, so he could’ve learned the hard way, and had a much more personal character
- The guy who I made run through the pre-build thing had RP’ed earlier in his life. However, it was revealed that he only ever did the RP part. No dice or numbers whatsoever. That may be fine for improv and pretend kid games, but D&D doesn’t work like that. Regardless, he had a pretty clear cut idea of who he wanted to be. I made him pick cleric for starters.
- Originally, there was a 1-sided character sheet provided in the Starter Set. The legitimate double-sided 4e (4th edition) character sheets were far better organized, had more room, and made a ton more sense.
So I ended up converting my brother to the 2-sided sheet (Halfling Rogue, he was) and COMPLETELY overhauled the first guy’s character (Elf Cleric to Half-Elf Ranger. He wanted to be Evil but I’m still like “NO WAY”). As such, I only read the parts concerning those characters.
Cue many hours of reading a standard rule elsewhere in the book and hastily fixing some stupid mistake I’d not have made had I actually read the PHB1 from start to finish. This is why I highly recommend reading both PHB1 and PHB2 (if you want more races/classes) from START to FINISH and making sure to fill out the character sheets in the proper order as mandated by the book. 2 hours is my record time.
With the girl, I took the PDFs on a file key to her house and was able to create her Eladrin Druid just the way a character should be created.
The fourth guy I couldn’t get together with before D&D-Day (haha pun), so I asked him who he’d be. Being one of my best friends, he had already agreed to be a gracious tester for the game, so he gave a general idea of who he wanted to be and I think I pleased him with a Tiefling Warlock. I had to write backstories for all of them.
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Sunday was D-Day. I had printed out papers with all the character’s powers on them for complete and quick reference (A GREAT MOVE). I also printed and pasted together a DM screen, which I’ll put up at some point. I also printed out some basic suggestion sheets giving the players a quick run-down of combat and other encounter actions and skill checks.
The girl and her friend who was mildly interested showed up at 12:30, and we played Anomia while waiting for the Ranger to show up (the Tiefling said he’d be here after church). At 1:00, we just went upstairs and customized the LEGO miniatures I’d be using (yes, LEGO minifigures work FAR better than those little tiles). We started the first encounter, right out of the Starter Set, because it was premade and I didn’t want to be left to write one as I had never DM’ed before. I do have a major plot planned out, but I could easily work the premade adventure in.
The first encounter was outside the goblin caves, between the Rogue and the Druid and a pair of goblins, plus two wolves. A bit overpowered? Yeah.
All was not running smoothly until out Tiefling showed up (the Ranger canceled on account of family business). They defeated one of the wolves and the goblins. The other wolf fled the scene. Thank god. They took an extended rest right after that. That’s not a good sign.
Our Eladrin left at 2:30, so it was down to me, my brother (who I could manage) and my best friend. I thought, “Yes, if my friend runs the Eladrin character, all will go well. It’s also less of a psychological strain on me to deal with less people, who are my close friends or relatives.”
I’ll just let the encounters speak for themselves.
First one, they sweet-talk the Kobolds and the Ice Dragon in order to simply pass through the room, gaining 300 XP (100 each) for the interaction. Then the Rogue falls into a pit-trap and they defeat 2 Dire Rats and 4 Goblins. Yay. Also, my brother goes through healing surges like a woman goes through shoes (sorry if I offended anyone). Now comes the problem.
First off, I’ve been using notecards to keep track of Initiative. That’s good. I only just remembered that I should have a sheet with generic stats and Passive Insight/Perception. And they stumble upon an enchanted chessboard. Moving in a way that does not reflect the piece you represent (determined by which square you walk in on) forces you back to the nearest legal square, you take 5 psychic damage, and the statues come alive. Yes. Giant chesspiece statues. Crazy strong. SEVEN OF THEM.
Who wrote this encounter? It’s supposed to be for 1st levels. FIRST LEVELS FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.
Needless to say, the encounter takes out two pawns and a rook, but the characters are on and off the floor unconscious and making saving throws. By the end, most healing surges spent, I’ve been ignoring the “get up from prone is a move action” and just tell them to run for the exit. I fudged the rules and had if an enemy is shifted into an illegal square, it self destructs. Also, if I didn’t mention, they never figured out about the movement rules until I explicitly had to tell them.
Also, the next room was another encounter.
Luckily, because of massive rules fudge and their crazy diplomacy rolls (well, I let them all roll once and pick the highest, and that PC would speak), they managed to sweet talk the human guards into letting them take another extended rest in the room. And there they stopped.
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I can’t hold beginner’s stupidity against them, nor can I penalize them for being unfamiliar with being in- or out-of-character (much metagaming and gray areas occured). Thank god there’s one more encounter (the boss). Then it’s up to me to flesh out the real world outside the caves. I’m much more comfortable with design and the mood of the game itself now, having run a test game/intro, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Finding time is more challenging. I tend to make it.
Also, good news: someone from my theater class has been expressing great interest in D&D (like MADDENINGLY so), so it’ll be nice to have another hard-core (did I mention FEMALE — yay diversity and breaking gender stereotypes) player to possibly join the group.
Also, though you may be tempted to play music, and your friends may suggest songs, only play stuff that fits the mood. Legend of Zelda Dungeon Theme is fine. Hamsterdance or the Bee-Gees are obviously a no-go.
I should post one of these sometime after every game, and maybe in-between. That is, if I didn’t just turn off the entire prospective group. I don’t think I did though. Plus my brother lives here, so he can’t escape.
I also did an 
