Saturday, September 27, 2014

My Background in Tabletop Gaming: Part 1

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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