Skip to main content

Early Experiences

We started out with D&D 3.5e Basic Game and added the Player's Kit.

Some recap of the experiences:

  • Mechanics take a little getting used to.  Practice made perfect.
  • Mechanics get in the way of role playing, but are a necessary evil to get started.
  • Early PC deaths are inevitable, but they teach the importance of NOT doing stupid things as a player that get your character killed.
    • The elvan mage who draws fire from a dragon so the fighter doesn't get hit.
      • "Over here.  Over here"  Elf gets fried by 50 points of lightening damage and is dead.
  • Yelling is a big problem,  We got a stuffed d20 and now only the person with it can talk, unless it is placed on the "conference square".
  • Venue is important.  Playing at the dining room table caused players to be irritable and cranky.  Playing at the living room coffee table let everyone relax and the game went more smoothly.
Some early lessons:

  • Players have a hard time letting go of dead characters.  I made a memorial webpage to serve as a "graveyard" to help record those lost players.
  • Puzzles are great and bring a lot of memorable moments.  A door that only opens by knocking it was a simple puzzle, but had one player "licking the door" to try to get it to open.  Lots of laughs for all.
  • Breaking the "we have to fight" tendency was hard.  I finally put the players in an infinitely regenerating dungeon at the control of an evil sorcerer.  After round and round and round of fighting, the players finally realized the only was to win was not to fight.  Lesson learned.
To date, from my experiences with my high school/college group, I miss having a co-DM.  I used to run the plot and game and mechanics while my co-DM did all the voices and conversations.  I am not as good at voices as I used to be.

by DM Dad


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5E Starting Gold and Equipment for Higher Levels

The DMG has a rough recommendation for starting gold and equipment for higher levels, but with my groups running one-shots, we wanted to nail it down to level by level. Here's my DMG-inspired table. Generally I allow equipment to be traded in during character creation for half book value, where applicable. I also, as a GM, offer to make custom magic items for players who can't choose. A list of magical items by rarity can be found here  with stats available in the DMG. I also generally allow players to buy healing potions (2d4+2) for 50gp and greater healing potions for 250gp (4d4+4). PHB items are available at book cost at creation. I do not allow other equipment to be purchased except in game. This is generally based off the "high magic" campaign. Level Starting Gold Starting Equipment / Magic Items 1 - 160gp  OR Standard starting equipment 2 210gp Standard starting equipment 3 285gp Standard starting equipment 4 365gp Standard sta
2 comments
Read more

An Analysis of Tasha's Caldron of Everything: Spells

 I am going to be evaluating "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" for incorporation into my own games. I figured I would go ahead and record this analysis on my blog here so other folks can follow along and glean some useful information from the time I spent. I tried to find an in-depth analysis elsewhere, but at this time none so detailed as this seems to be available. You will not find any of the text in its entirety in this blog. I will be referencing the first printing of the book, so please refer to that as you read along. There are no released errata for the book at the time of writing, although there are errata from other books that affect some of this content. There are 21 spells in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. This includes Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Lightning Lure, and Sword Burst cantrips that were originally published in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. There are 9 spells that allow you to summon creatures of various types. Three spells are notabl
Post a Comment
Read more

GM Tip: Changing the Effective Font Size in Roll20

I've seen this complaint a few times in roll 20:  can't adjust the font in the chat window.  Unfortunately, they haven't added controls for this yet, at least not at the level of account I have.  For me the font is just too big, but I know for a lot of people it is too small. I am using chrome to do this, but I am sure it will work in other browsers. The method basically allows to increase/decrease the size of the font/controls by about a factor of 2 easily. To increase the effective font size, zoom in with the browser (ctrl-plus), and reduce the zoom on the map, until it is back to the size you want. To decrease the effective font size, zoom out with the browser (ctrl-minus), and increase the zoom on the map until its back to the size you want. The main limit of this is the limited range of the map zoom, which really limited me to fonts doubling to halving in size. Default size with chat font Decrease browser zoom and increase map zoom to reduce font e
Post a Comment
Read more