Hi! New here. Heres the last D&D game I played.
Kevin Vito:
Now, I can't remember my stats exactly, but I was a rogue/bard named Neviik. I recall getting into a lot of arguments with my DM (Richard) over my character's backstory.
Rich: "OK, your guy was raised on the streets. He's a rough, practical, no-frills kind of guy who lives a spartan lifestyle stealing from the rich..."
me: "If he lives a spartan lifestyle why would he want to steal from people? My guy steals because he likes money. He takes from the rich so he can pay for his extravagant lifestyle. Also, he should beat up a cleric at some point and steal his vestments so he can steal money from the collection plate."
So my DM caved on that point, but he decided that my character has some kind of vendetta against the rich people who killed his family. I went with it.
Other characters:
My buddy Eric played a fire Gensai with amnesia and a bunch of tattoos all over his buddy. Later, Eric would complain that most of the numbers on the stat sheets were completely useless as the only things we were being told to roll for were Dexterity and Charisma (both of which he had low scores in.)
The other guy, Nathan I think, played an Elven ranger with a wolf. He didn't really do much.
Nicky played a vampire girl. During the first session of the campaign she spent most of the time at the town brothel where she bought an elven sex slave. She didn't show up for the second session.
This other blonde girl played a psionic spy, but she never used her powers. She too spent the whole first session at the brothel paying to have sex with elven girls. She also didn't show up for the second session.
Finally, Richard's girlfriend, Megan, was some kind of half-demon cleric descended from royalty. She handled all the rules because she owned the books and Richard actually didn't have any prior experience as a DM. She was using the 2.0 book though (I never played 2.0 before), which was a problem since I helped everybody create their characters (I have a program on my computer for that) and everyone using 3.5 character sheets (3.5 is the only D&D I know). She had us rolling DEX and CHA for everything.
Well, the first night we played took place in a city. The girls spent the whole time at the brothel not really doing anything. Eric attempted to rob an old man for some reason but rolled a critical fail and ended up getting beaten up himself.
I think Nathan made some attempt to talk to people in the town about his backstory or something (whatever it was).
I robbed people (a lot) and ended up with:
Four white horses and a royal carriage
Two masterwork Rapiers
An enchanted longsword which I loaned to Eric.
A mint's worth of gold and silver.
Some nice new clothes...
and some candy.
I wasn't even minmaxing, I swear. I didn't even roll that well.
Anyway, we all ended up getting around to some kind of adventuring office where we were sent to escort a caravan through the desert.
Next session:
OK, so two of our people didn't show up, and we were in the desert.
I hate deserts. Nothing but sand everywhere. It's boring! I prefer my nature to be green, leafy, and climbable.
That whole session went on forever. None of the NPC's had anything really interesting to say. Rich tried to shake things up with some kind of glimmering light in the distance that no one was really interested in, then he threw some kind of pointing ragman in there that didn't really make any sense and was ripped of from a Magic: the Gathering book. So, he threw a bunch of gnolls at us. That battle took freaking forever.
Anyway, we haven't had another D&D night since. I'm trying to get my friends back into it (this time I DM! My brother and his friends seemed to have fun when I had two teams of players racing through a dungeon crawl). My friends just want to play World of Warcraft though... Is there anything I can do?
David B. Goode:
Hey Chrono,
Yeah, its tough when its been a while and the groups not feeling it. I had that happen with a group - lots of personal drama involved with players, too. Not cool.
You've got at least two options:
1. Get the group motivated. It sounds like you've got the drive to DM. That's good. One issue covered.
Were the people in your group friends? Do you guys usually hang-out? Or were you just a group that met for gaming?
If you really want that particular group, try to interest them one at a time. Hook them with something in the game you know they'll like. Sounds like elven brothels are popular with at least two players.
Also make sure you've got a clear handle on the rules before the game starts. Most of the current D&D rules can be found on-line. You want the first game you play together to be fun. No pressure.
2. Find a new group. Check the bulletin board at your local library or hop on-line and google gaming groups in your hometown. Or try to rope different friends into the game.
My favorite gaming groups have always been my friends. And I've seen friendships start in gaming groups.
I hope this was helpful. Your gaming story reminds me of some I've played through.
Kevin Vito:
Most of these people are friends, there were only a couple I didn't really know very well.
I like to think I have a fairly good grasp of the rules. When I DM I'm usually pretty good about making people do strength checks or saving rolls at the appropriate times. I have a couple of programs on my computer to help me create characters and maps and links to a few good sites I've found.
I would like to play with my friends, but there are a few things I'd like to do differently:
1) Use boards and miniatures. I think this will appeal a lot to Eric and make it easier for me to keep track of where everyone is standing.
2) Ask everybody what their goals are as players and what they want their character's goals to be instead of telling people what their character's goals are.
3) Find some way to incorporate more sex into the game because everybody's mind was on that during the first session. I think Nathan may have simply been distracted because the blonde girl was drawing boobs on his character sheet. Theres this one game I'm designing that I haven't discussed on these boards yet that incorporates sex magick. I might try to work that into the game as an extra school of magic.
4) Try to encourage more creativity in combat. One thing I liked when playing with my brother was when I threw a bunch of skeletons at him and told him that only blunt weapons would be effective. My brother's response: "Can't I just whack the skeletons with the non-pointed end of the spear?" I ended up improvising blunt damage tables for all weapons and gave one kid a "Deathblow" feat which would allow him to use his sword as a blunt weapon by holding it by the blade and beating people with the pommel.
5) Make sure that players know that the rulebook is only a guide and that they have options available to them that aren't available in computer games like WoW.
David B. Goode:
1) Yeah, I've been using minis for a while, and they really do help keep tabs of things in combat. Plus, I have a player who's mini-crazed,so it keeps him interested. They can distract, though.
2) Yeah, players only have control over their character. DMs have the whole rest of the universe. I used to have a DM who would just run your character for you. That wasn't cool.
3) Sex, huh. I'll leave that one to you and the tastes of your group, man.
4) Yeah, creative fights are the only ones people remember. Fights in cool places like watermills and factories and clock towers can be fun. Another trick I like to use is a Mexican stand-off. Have the PCs get into a tangle with some goblins and suddenly a purple worm bursts from the ground, eating both sides.
5) Yeah, that's what table-top games are all about. My brother-in-law is a photographer. He's challenged himself to take a picture of a new theme each day. He asked me for a theme and I gave him "freedom". He took a picture of a 20-sided dice on top of a stack of game books.
Caldis:
If you dont mind me asking Chrono what is the age range of this group of players?
Related to your #2 suggestion, did you sense that these players were interested in the activity of role playing or were they just hanging out? The two girls who didnt show up for the second session in particular, were they really there for the game or for some guy they thought was cute?
Do you think you can get the whole group to give it another shot or ar you looking at a more limited group of players?
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