Now perhaps would be a good time to
establish how much familiarity I have with tabletop RPGs, and of
course knowing that you've played longer than I have will make it
much easier to dismiss any points I have that you don't agree with;
allow me to accommodate you.
During high school my little clique of
friends and I decided we should learn how to play D&D. David
bought up the core books to 3.5 from the Borders bookstore and we set
about reading them. None of us could figure out how to actually play.
He eventually returned the books and we shrugged our shoulders and go
on with our lives.
As I came to college in fall of 2008 I
fell in with a bunch that would eventually form the school's fantasy
and sci-fi club, and the founder was adamant about getting some new
players for his fresh D&D 4th Edition books. So he
helped us make characters and we showed up eager to learn how to
play. The campaign began with all of us in an arena as enslaved
gladiators. Now I wasn't actually told how the rules of D&D
worked, I just knew to roll initiative when a fight started and that
if it was my turn that I could attack. It wasn't until after that
session that I saw my character, Tarnykus Thunderscale the Dragonborn
Warlord, was capable of healing. That came in handy in the second
session, since we ended up fighting the guards of the arena. Who were
level 14 Yuan-Ti; we were level 2. We managed to bust out though
since we'd found all the other gladiators and convinced them to help
us (then snuck away while they kept the guards tangled). Having
completely hopped his rails, Matt introduced a DMPC to sneak us off
the island.
Looking back, it's pretty obvious that this wasn't the optimal way to be playing 4th Edition D&D. For my part, I started to get really invested
in learning the system and seeing if I could get a better grasp on it, so I grabbed the books and
started planning out my first campaign.
The first session I ever ran didn't go
super well. I was ripping off the story to Seven
Samurai and had an
uninspired and heavily railroaded first delve cooked up. I was
inflexible. I included mechanics of my own design in a boss fight
which came to an unsatisfying conclusion. I could tell I needed to
get better.
So I
read those forums. I also borrowed a copy of Keep on the
Shadowfell from a friend (at the
time). I studied that thing; tried to understand why it was laid out
the way it was and see how I could use that as a model for my own
attempts. I ran 3/4ths of that adventure for two players that
semester. Meanwhile, I was branching out. I started playing
Werewolf: The Forsaken and Star Wars: Saga Edition that same
semester. I wouldn't get to play much of either afterward, but I was
approaching a level of familiarity with the hobby that I could
appreciate what they did well and didn't do well. I'm still in love
with the Condition Track in Saga Edition. The idea that you could
build a character that ignores dealing damage and just focuses on
knocking you further down that track until you're either unconscious
or left a babbling incoherent non-threat...it's the very best way to
get me wistful.
Over
the next year I got big on roleplaying over the internet using
Maptools, a digital tabletop program. I got to play in a wonderful
campaign called Palonian Intrigue run in D&D 4th
Edition, and played what has since become my very favorite character:
Canticus D. Feywood, Half-Elven Bard. Canticus had so long studied
the heroic poems, songs, and Eddas that he was convinced he could use
his knowledge of how those stories unfolded to inform his decisions
and lead him safely through his own adventure, which he could then
profit off of by writing his own songs detailing his exploits. He got
wrapped up in a truly labyrinthine scandal involving a frame-up
between the human kingdom of Palonia and the Elven fortress the
Aegisthorn. It soon became evident that we had no idea how far up it
all went, and all throughout the murderous wildcard Velvet dogged us.
Next
up: My Pathfinder period
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