Erol - Snippet of a Wizard

Erol settled himself on the windows edge of the his room at the Elfsong Tavern overlooking the city of Baldur’s Gate, and sighed, wondering how he had gotten himself into this mess.

With the information he had been given, the curse he’d purchased and placed on the silver comb, with the paige he’d paid to take the comb directly to Duke Portyr, he should be rolling in gold right now, not running for his life. But who was it that had talked?

People would have to be questioned. Betrayal could not be allowed to go unpunished.

He took a long pull of his wine, letting the ruby liquid languor on his tongue before swallowing. Westgate Ruby wasn’t the best wine, but any little bit of alcohol that could dull the anger in his head would help. Not that his elvish blood would let him remain drunk long.

Well, can’t be helped now. Erol poured the remainder of the wine to the ground below, then dropped the clay goblet and watched it smash on the cobble. He liked to hear that sound, the breaking of fired clay. He wondered if the fingers of those who had turned on him would sound similar when he broke them off.

The above is the beginning of the backstory for my Elf Wizard, Erol Odrelel Maglnerdh in our new campaign: Descent Into Avernus.

Campaign journals will be uploaded after the play sessions, as is normal when i'm a player.

«§øùl¡ë»

Stat Block

Erol Odrelel Maglnerdh

Lawful Evil Gray Elf Wizard 1;
Medium Humanoid (elf); CR 1;
HD 1d4+2 HP 6; Init +2; Spd 30ft; AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14;
BAB +0; Grp -1; Atk -1 melee (1d4-1 dagger) or +2 ranged (1d8/x3 longbow);
SA Arcane Spellcaster, Summon Familiar (bat), Immunity to magic sleep effects, +2 save vs Enchantment spells or effects, Low-light Vision;
SQ WP(Elf)(longsword, rapier, longbow, shortbow);
SV F +2, R +2, W +4; S 9 D 15 C 14 I 19 W 14 K 12.
Skills and Feats:

• Concentration +6,
• Know(Arcana) +8,
• Know(Dungeoneering) +8,
• Know(History) +8,
• Know(The Planes) +8,
• Listen +7,
• Spellcraft +8.
• Scribe Scroll
• Alacritous Cogitation^(CM37*)

Spells - DC 14 + SL

• Cantrips (3) - All from PHB
• Level 1 (2; 1 from class, +4 from ability)
• Burning Hands
• Charm Person
• Grease
• Mage Armor
• Ray of Enfeeblement
• Summon Monster I

Gear - Spellbook, (2) daggers, Elvish Longbow (family heirloom), Quiver (20 arrows), backpack w/ Waterskin, rations (1 day), bedroll, sack, flint & steel, candles (10), map case, parchment (3), ink, ink pen, spell component pouch
*Complete Mage pg 37

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Teaching D&D to Matthias and Stephanie

I wanted to play a game with my family on the weekends the kids are home from their dad's. Since Anna plays Wardancer in our Shadowrun game I thought it would be fun to continue some Shadowrun at home, so as not to switch rulesets on her, but the overly complicated character generation of SR was daunting when I sat down with Matthias, my 14yo stepson. So, taking a feather from the cap of Dungeon Craft, I had he and Stephanie (my wife) roll up super-fast characters.

Choose ability scores on a net +7, don't worry about the scores, they're never used anyway. Just assign the modifiers. (This is based on the pregen characters from the box set of D&D5E, where all premades have a net +7 modifier score)

Pick an occupation from a random list. Stephanie picked conman, Matthias picked warrior.

I assigned them equipment, a leather shirt and a short sword. I put them on the road, the warrior became a city guard, the conman his prisoner for breaking the law.

Boom. Character creation done, playing, in less than 10 minutes.

I set them up with a common situation, on the road to the next city that actually has a jail, they come upon a coach beset with bandits. The bandits are just finishing up, and when they see a city guard they take off, a young woman over their shoulder.

Matt and Stephanie go to see what is going on, and find a man with his head bleeding. Matt tries to offer aid, but the man yells that they took  his daughter! go find them!

Stephanie asks to be cut free so she can help, the guard says no. He pulls her through the brush until they hear arguing, the woman is berating the men. Matt tries to sneak up and watch, Stephanie bursts through the brush and falls to the ground, hollering that she is being chased and needs someone to help her.

The bandits distracted, the woman takes off. One bandit chases, the other advances on Stephanie. Matt steps out and knocks the man out with a headbutt.

Stephanie scoots over and cuts herself free. She says they have to go after the woman. Matt insists that they have to go to the city. She tackles him and tries to tie him to a tree, but he breaks free. She runs off into the forest, but instead of trying to follow the woman, backtracks to the road.

Matt gets hopelessly turned around and lost for several hours.

Stephanie finds the man on the road, and wants to rob him. She has the sword of the bandit. The man pulls a small knife and attacks, she rolls max damage and kills him dead.

She rifles through the carriage, taking some nice clothing and a signet ring, and heads back to town, a new ploy brewing.

Matt is lost for hours, finds a stream, follows it, is attacked by a boar, barely manages to kill it, eats, climbs a tree, finds the direction back to his town, and returns.

Stephanie gets a room at the Inn, Matt has to explain to his guard captain how he lost a prisoner.

The next day, Stephanie heads out, back on the road, to the city.

Matt takes a leisure start, sleeps in, has mead for breakfast, grabs his horse and then heads back out to the woods to see if he can find the woman. He gets hopelessly lost again, this time wandering into the village of cannibal goblins. He is attacked, has his legs badly cut up by goblin daggers, tied, and thrown into a hut. He manages to break the terrible ropes of the goblins, smashes through the side of the hut Koolaid Man style, grabs his horse and takes off before the goblins can get him again.

Stephanie makes it to the city, dressed and disguised in men's clothes, passing as a man, and shows the signet around until she finds someone who recognizes it and gives her directions to the estate. She shows up there, bearing the terrible news of the death of the master, offering to watch the house while they go look for the daughter, which is shot down, but she is offered a pallet in the barn to sleep on. She manages to convince the stable boy to steal borrow her some things from the house to sell, and kidnap him and go with her on her adventure.

Matt makes it back to the road, and decides to see what he can find in the city. He is almost dead, and it shows when he gets to the city. The guards direct him to the temple district, and he wanders into the temple of Pelor, the Sun God. The priest is empathetic, but asks him if he is a follower of Pelor. When he says no, they name a healing sum greater than he has, but tell him if he enters into service of Pelor they will heal him and give him a place to belong (he will become a cleric of Pelor).

+++

After testing out the super-fast character creation process, I love it. two characters, less than 10 minutes, straight into play. All skill checks were just ability checks, with target numbers reasonable and made up in my head. This for sure won't work for Shadowrun, where you are expected to be an expert in your field from the beginning. But for D&D, works great.

Props to Professor Dungeon Master from Dungeon Craft on his simplified rules. Watch his videos for some great content. Like, Share, Subscribe.

Happy gaming!

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The Awakening of Prince Silverfish

Here's the situation: Fantasy D&D, Homebrew setting.
Our heroes:

Tarek, Male Human Cleric 5 - Former advisor to the king of Demacia, when the king died and his tyrannical son took the throne, Tarek fled. He seeks to raise an army and overthrow the king, freeing the people of Demacia.
Skye, Female Garganutan Sorcerer 5 - Raised in an orphanage, she seeks her orphan-brother Rodrey, who left when he was of age to make a name and send for Skye. She is 16 and released, she hasn't heard from him in months.
Dominic, Male Wood Elf Rogue 5 - Son of the Captain of the Guard of his home country, and playmate of the prince. The prince is a seer that received a vision of a growing evil and sent Dominic to investigate.

Our heroes began their journey as guards on a caravan headed for Silverfish, the metropolitan capitol of County Pots Arcana. On their journey they interrupted a kobold trying to make a deal with ratmen. They did not learn what the deal was, only saw a kobold amidst many ratmen.

Once they arrived in the city they began investigating their various tasks. Through divination they discovered that the rising evil is a black dragon named Boldrainissbirrag, the Deathlord, and he is amassing a treasure hoarde using dragonborn and kobolds as his loyal emissaries. His motivation is greed. He has installed his dragonborn in society and the local Silverfish government, and in the royal court. He seeks to take over power of the region and wage war on the dragons of the North and East.

While tracking Rodrey, Skye discovered a city where goblinkin have tried to civilize themselves, crafting goods similar to Native American jewelry and pottery. They needed a merchant that could go to the city to trade their goods, and made a deal with Rodrey. He started as a slave, but showed a shrewd sense of business and worked his way into a trusted position.

They met with him as he was in negotiations with a local businessman, on the council of the Merchant Guild. They also got their first sight of a black dragonborn female, a Contessa, though they haven't gotten her name.

The party, in researching the kobolds' connection to the dragon, discovered a local magic shop keeper that had a breakin, and they tracked the little beasties into the sewer undercity. There they encountered a "poop-witch" (a woman that lived in a cistern in the sewer) that offered them a deal... steal the child of an oathbreaker, and pour a potion of Stone to Flesh on a man in the castle gardens, and she will give them a great magical item for each quest. They agreed.

Tonight we started here: They have retrieved the stolen items and returned them to the shopkeeper, but upon returning to their rooms discovered that they had been ransacked. Luckily they didn't have much, so kept it on them in their packs. They went to the local temple for a divination to discover who had done such a thing to their rooms, and were told by a local priest that the bishop is missing! So they went to see, and he was there in the room, but acting strangely. He teleported away, and they spoke to the high priest, who did the scrying for them, learning that a black dragonborn had done the b&e, and also focusing on the bishop, to find him chained and in the clutches of a Barlgura demon!! The Barlgura tells the bishop that he is going to shift to the temple and desicrate it, so the party runs back and fights the demon and his minions, then tortures him for information, learning that the bishop is being held in the Abyss.

They put that to the side for a moment and go to pour the potion on the man in the castle garden. Upon releasing him they discover he is Prince Caelum Silverfish, heir to the throne, stoned some 150 years ago during a coupe gone wrong after he killed his older brother and tried to overthrow his father. Now he wants the party's help in restoring him to his rightful place on the throne, in exchange for soldiers to assist in Tarek's designs to overthrow the new king, and to fight off the dragon.

All very exciting, they are having a great time. I find that I need a better system for organizing common NPCs, especially since we only get to play about once a month or so.

How are your current games going? Leave a comment below.

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Updates, 5e, DarkSun... still no star wars

So as you can see by the dates, it has been a couple years since I posted last. I was running expeditions until this huge problem with my parole officer, and I had to stop. But all that is over, and here we are, back on the posting train.

One of my biggest regrets is that I was starting to get a regular readership and had even been followed and contacted by someone at WOTC, and then a couple weeks later I had drop out. Ugh.

But not running games at the local shop or posting online doesn't mean I haven't been playing.

I had a group from church that would come over almost every Friday and play. We started running Princes of the Apocalypse, and then switched to Star Wars Saga Edition when we were finished. I haven't had the opportunity to play the Fantasy Flight Star Wars, but I'm highly interested.

College got in the way, and I had to turn it over to my friend Malcolm, who would send me weekly updates. They had a lot of fun.

After college, my in-laws came to me and asked to play, so we've been doing some 5e in a homebrew setting that has been a lot of fun. We manage about once per month, and have a good go at it. A city-based campaign with an awakened evil (black dragon) sending minions into the city to steal gold for it's hoard. That's the overarching plot, but it's never as simple as that. The cleric has to raise an army to take his throne from usurpers. The sorceress has to find her missing orphanage brother (that happens to be the human liaison for the goblin-kin that are giving a try at industry). An old woman they met in the sewer (!!!) has asked them to revive the petrified love of her youth that is currently on display in the castle gardens, and in return she will give them magical gifts. The high priest of one of the churches has gone missing! but wait, no, he's there, but acting strangely...

And now a group of friends that wants to try playing has asked me to DM. One is a huge Star Wars fiend. His license plate says Boba Fett. He has hundreds of the action figures in his office, and designed the blue prints for cardboard cutouts of some of the ships, now hanging from his ceiling. I'll have to get pics. They're incredible. Anyway, I said, "Let's play Star Wars." and they said no, they'd rather play D&D. Well, I'm about D&D'd out. But okay, I'll do it.

However, since I'm the DM and they've never played before, we're playing DarkSun, converted from 2e by gzw1010 and posted on Reddit. Because if you're going to play D&D, and you have a choice between fighting the necromancer... again!!! OR a mad max apocalyptic dystopia with psionic cannibal halflings at war with city states run by self proclaimed sorcerer dragon kings... yeah, we're doing that.

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Ding! I just leveled as a DM.

Quote of the day: "There's not a problem in this world that can't be solved by enough celestial giant badgers." -milesunderground

I'm a late adopter. I don't do anything as soon as it comes out. I didn't get an Xbox until the 360 was almost released, and I was lucky enough to buy a 360 after they fixed the red ring issue. Sometimes it helps to wait.
I didn't do 4th, preferring my comfortable, safe, happy 3.5, and have been very secure in the knowledge that there are 10,000 books for any 3.5 era (D&D, Modern, Future, Past, Horror, Super Hero, ShadowRun-style, Star Wars) that I wanted to play in.
(I still haven't tried Fantasy Flight's Star Wars. I do love Saga.)
But when I came home and did a search around town, and only found two games being played in one of the local shops, and they were both 5e games, I was ready.
I have played since the start of episode 2 of Hordes of the Dragon Queen, taking my Halfling War Priest of Torm to level 5 while battling cultists, dragon-kin, mages, and even finishing off the BBSEGirl with a guiding bolt while blind (thank you channel energy +10 to hit).
While many of the rules I know and expect from 3.5 are missing (what do you mean flaking doesn't give me a bonus?), the game is solid, the play flows well, and we spend more time adventuring than looking up obscure rules. Simplified, not "dumbed down".
This May, in one of our local shops, I have been recruited by the local Adventurer's League rep to DM D&D 5e Expeditions, the companion adventures to Wednesday Nite's Encounters (which I will be playing tonite at 4).
Being asked to be a DM for public play is a big step for me, and one I am totally ready for,.. just as soon as I get some miniatures that aren't rats or space marines o.O
Thank you to Dragon Fury for this opportunity, and thank you to the players who will be lining up to fill my ranks and experience 5e.
«§øùl¡ë»

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What's your favorite character?

Have you ever played a game long enough to get past level 4? Have you spent months and months questing through dungeons and slaying vile barons? Have you gone epic and stormed the gates of Mount Celestia?
Who did you do it with? What's your favorite character you ever played?

My favorite character is PotsnPan Candytooth Silverfish. MGn Wiz8/Fgt3/EK7/ArchMage3. "Pots" is apprentice to the god of the hourglass, Chronos himself. He is ArchMage of the College of the Nine, and revered as a minor diety in his founded city of Silverfish, county of Pots Arcana. He and his brave companions slew the Necromancer Emmerus and his brother the Death Knight Heltanner, driving back the undead hordes and saving the kingdom. They recovered the ancient broadsword the Burning Cross and with it installed Osfred as king, and united the Seven Kingdoms.**

How about you? Doesn't have to be d&d. Doesn't even have to be 3.5. Tell me about the character you played the longest, the adventures you had, and the bbseg* you defeated.

*BBSEG = Big Bad Super Evil Guy
**If any of this is familiar from other stories, I wouldn't be surprised. TJ liked to steal from everywhere. It was a pretty awesome story, though.

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Clerics as Tanks, and The need for a fighter

The Friday night game is going well, and the players are learning that sometimes it isn't a good idea to kick down the door and charge in before you know what is in there.
The cleric is the closest thing we have to an actual face-to-face fighter, and that doesn't seem to be working out so well. He's not smart (the character, not the player. Rick is doing an excellent job of playing him as such), and just busts through doors.
This has led him to falling down pits and being used as a chew toy by giant rats, and as a training dummy for a handful of rat-men (Skaven, stats of goblins, but I don't have gobo minis, just Skaven).
Friday he fell in combat to a Skaven Grey Seer (Adept2)'s burning hands spell and several attacks by the warriors.
The wizard fell, and went all the way to -7hp before being stabilized, the rogue down to 1, the Ranger (ranged type) down to 2, before they managed to kill all but one of the warriors, who ran off to protect his badly wounded Chief, giving the players the opportunity to grab their wounded and drag them to safety, and send for the healer.
For a little background, we are playing a by-the-books 3.5 game, where the only house rule is: Up to level 4, you can change your character in any way. Change class, feats, skills, ability scores, whatever. Try to figure out what you want to play in those levels so you're ready to move on in the campaign as we go up.
All four of my players are brand new to paper/dice playing, so I want them to learn the book way before introducing all the house rules that mess with it, and then bring in house rules in later games when they have a firm understanding of the core concepts and what house rules do to alter them.

This brings me to the topic of this post, the need for a fighter.
Before I begin, let me just say to Demon that yes, a war priest is an awesome fighter, if you don't mind waiting 3-5 rounds for buffs.
Enough said, moving on.
Many players forego the Fighter as being too vanilla, not interesting enough. They want something cool. They want something that can throw fire and shoot lightning, call down the powers of the heavens or choke the evil with entangling vines while their pet bear gnaws on the remains. But the vanilla fighter is the tank for a reason. The shear number of feats he acquires gives him an amazing advantage, especially at low levels.
For example, let's take Togrun. Togrun is going to be a human male Fighter 1.
Using the basic stats (15,14,13,12,10,8) lets give him the following:

• STR 15
• DEX 12
• CON 14
• INT 10
• WIS 13
• CHA 8

HP: 12
Feats: Weapon Focus(Longsword), Sword and Shield Combat Style (+1 to hit, +1AC), Power Attack
Combat: +5 (longsword) 1d8+2/19x2
AC (chain shirt, lg shield) 18.
So he's very hard to hit, has a decent attack, and with a 3-11 damage, 4-12 with power attack, can smash out most any CR1/3 Skaven (Goblin) and CR1/2 Orc.
Compare this to the cleric, that didn't take too many combat buffs, and isn't a war priest, and we have To Hit: +2, 1d8+2/x3, AC 17.
Close on the AC and good on the damage, but that missing extra little bit from the BAB and WF takes its toll at the early levels.
Granted, this is Rick's first time playing, and it is a learning experience, but a good fighter is needed.

A well thought out character takes practice, and its okay to make mistakes and stumble along the way. Plan out a level map for your character with a concept in mind, so you know what to take at each level. Look over prestige classes to see what your requirements are so you can get the most out of them as early as possible while maintaining your concept. Think about what your game and Game Master focus on. Is it RP? Combat? Puzzles? or a mix? How will your stats and skills play their strengths to the GM's campaign goals?
Will that flavor point in sleight of hand come in handy when you suddenly have a need to not be seen pocketing the key while talking to the baron? Or is your answer to every confrontation, "I hit it with my axe"?
If you haven't played a vanilla fighter in awhile, try a revisit and experience the awesomeness that comes from always being combat ready.

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Everything I needed to know about DM'ing I learned in Prison

Ok, let's talk about this. When I was out before, we played once per week, and I did my best to put on a good game, to come up with interesting challenges, and have some fun. But I did so at a severe disadvantage: I played once per week.
When you only play once per week, you don't necessarily have time to compile the lessons learned from previous sessions.
Its like watching a tv series one episode per week as compared to marathoning the whole thing back to back in an afternoon. Little things you didn't notice before just jump out at you.
So when I went to prison and found a few players, they wanted to play every-freaking day. So we did. I had a lot of chances to try out new things and learn what works and what doesn't, to put together a long term cohesive game, and grow at an amazing rate.
How fast of a rate, you might ask?
Let's do the math:
I used to play 1x/week, and depending on the day, for 3 to 10 hours in that one week. Lets average it to 6.
While inside, I played six days per week for 4 hours per day.
So in one year, on the old math, at 52 weeks times 6 hrs per week, we played 312 hours.
In one year, inside, at 4 hours per day for six days for 52 weeks, we played 1248 hours.

Here are some of the lessons I learned:

• Stick with point system or basic set - (15,14,13,12,10,8) or, for a more powerful game, (16,15,14,14,13,10). That's it. Don't do 4d6, reroll 1's. Someone will end up with low scores, someone will end up with (3) 18's, and someone will feel like the other players are superfluous and treat them badly, with many comments about, "Stop sucking."
• Keep challenge ratings appropriate. - Yes, its fun to get your ass handed to you and feel like you came out on top. But not in every encounter. Some encounters should be simple, some a decent challenge, and boss fights should almost kill you, but in the end you can overcome. If every fight is about to kill your players, then the players feel like it is only dumb luck or DM fudge rolls that are saving them, and discouragement happens.
• Take copious notes - I created little booklets that I could jot down notes on player questions, wish lists, investigation things that had to come back to them, etc. This way at night when I was preparing for tomorrow's game, I could come up with the answers to keep them on the trail (or throw them off). Yes, out here I can go to the store and buy a small spiral notebook for 35cents. In there I had to make them.
• Don't give away lots of magic and gold - It is fun for the players to find treasure. When you try to be nice and hand out cool stuff, it comes back to bite you in the end. Yes, they should have something special about their character, such as an awesome droid, a special weapon, a power that no one else has, but keep it small and retain balance in your game.
• Hold something back - Don't make all the powers available at the beginning. Don't have all the gear available, even if it is in the player's manual. Hold it back as a reward for later on. If they ask about it, tell them it isn't available, or they will have to find someone that knows it to learn it from them. Holding back will give them something to search for and give them a goal.
• Throw in a treasure hunt, even if you aren't sure what the treasure is yet - I had a random encounter with a derelict freighter that had obviously been in a pirate raid. The players searched the captain's quarters and found a datapad that had notes about a lost treasure, and included three possible locations. No matter which location they went to in what order, the third one had the next clue. After 9 locations, and they were to the place where the treasure should be, that's when I had to decide what it was, and I picked something that would help them in the final battle against the Sith Lord, a few crates of clone embryos. Now they can have their own troops to lead against the Shadow Lord's armies.
• Create custom prestige classes that are designed just for them. - I'll post mine later, but that was a big hit. I created a special prestige class designed specifically for each of my players that made them unique designed around something that happened to them in the game, such as Konan becoming a Werewolf Lord, or Lone Wolf becoming a Dragon Rider.
  In prison I did not have the books, and it was actually against the rules to play, so we had to make up everything. If some of these prestige classes exist in books, I didn't have them, and I'm sure mine are quite different.
• Sometimes what makes a player happy to play his character is a simple boon - Try giving him a 'Frost Giant' bloodline, so he gets a Cold Resistance 2. Simple, but it helps the player feel special, different, and adds to background.
• Try playing without the books - As I mentioned, I didn't have access to the books, and if I wanted anything, like Spell Descriptions or class abilities, I had to spend 3.50$ and call Skipp and hope he stopped talking about Warhammer long enough to look up what I needed before the end of the call. Monsters, had to make them up. Locations, had to make them up. Vehicles, had to make them up. We made up new spells, items, powers, equipment, modifications, rules, everything. Our game was loosely based on 3.5, with a twist of pathfinder, and we were constantly tweaking and testing new rules to find what works. Creativity flourishes when you don't have resources. Try it.

Well, those prolly aren't all the things I learned, but its a good amount of them. I hope someone learns something, and if you don't agree, that's okay. These are the things I learned after finding that it didn't work out, and came back to bite me in the ass.

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Into the dark, my friends.

We've had a few hiatus, -- babysitter issues, work conflicts, and one player was so confused by the character creation process that he backed out entirely. Ah, 3.5, we love to hate to love you -- but its coming around.

Last time, the party was told of a local boy gone wandering off into the woods and hasn't come back. They joined the search party and set off. One of the party is a ranger, and managed to track the boy's steps until they crossed with a lot of strange prints, much like large mouse prints, but somewhat different. They followed them and came to a clearing in the forest where standing stones jutted from the ground in some strange ruinous formation, and under one that was partially toppled, they found a stone door and an entrance to an underground complex.
It was dark inside, and they had to make use of torches and lanterns, and they have searched the first three rooms, been poisoned, diseased, fought large rats, and a strange creature that was immune to fire and had damage resistance.
Since it is their first game, they know nothing about any of these creatures, so the Lemur Devil was a real challenge. They made some good attempts, by dousing it in oil and igniting it, but didn't know until that point that it had fire immunity. The cleric did decent tank work, but in the end they ran, recovered, and hit it hard with missile weapons as it burst through the door, finally dealing enough damage to put it down.
That's where we ended for the night. Its going good so far.

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So treads the heroes...

The game is going great. After a day of character building, we followed up the next week with some simple combat vs Dire Rats

in the basement of a couple locals.
since they're new players, I wanted to start them out easy and give them a taste for the real danger, and it worked out well.
the cleric spent his healing spells on himself, he also being the tank, when his thigh was critically ripped into by the sharp incisors of the dire rat. The rogue and the wizard played their part, keeping the distance and dealing damage with bows and magic. The ranger fired through the windows to stay out of harm's way.
All in, a successful first adventure in the new campaign, and our wizard found us a sixth player... if he calls me back.
Next up: In the lair of the White Rat

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"Would you like to join my party?"

I was out for a week before I needed a game. I went where I used to go, only to discover they moved the building. It was in the same parking lot, but not where I was expecting. I didn't really notice a lot of additional space, just a different setup.
They had -no- game postings.
none.
and their RPG section looked like it was being stripped out.
It was.
And they close at 8pm on Saturday night. wtf? What gaming store closes at 8pm on a Saturday? Bard's Quest did it right. Open 'till midnight on Friday and Saturday nights.
So on to the next one.
A better faire, they had two 5e games going, so I dropped into that one at the end of the first episode of Horde of the Dragon Queen.
But one is not enough, and playing is insufficient when you've been running almost every day for 5 long years.
on to craigslist.
I found two posts for lfg, and contacted them both. Now we have a game, because the first person has friends.
I have five players for a Level 1 homebrew 3.5 campaign (the books I still have laying around), and I am happy.
I have five players that have NEVER played before.
That might take some thought. Where do you start? There are so many small changes, borrowings, house rules... what do you teach new players?
I decided to stick to the base rules. no house rules, just right out of the book. That way they can learn the correct way to play and there won't be confusion, because we can just look it up if there's a question.
Tonite is the first game: my players are ready, my story is ready, and it will be great.
Wish me luck.

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