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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


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