Dungeons & Discourse – Character Creation:Report

So, as you may know, this was the first D&D session that I’ve run (I have played in the past, but never DMed, and had also never played fourth edition prior to this), but I don’t intend it to be the last. I’m going to do these “reports” after each one so I can try and dispense advice to anyone else doing the same and anyone that’s got advice to give, please do so.

Some background first of all. This game was actually the one that’s in the back of the Dungeon Master’s Manual and is 4th Edition, meant to introduce the players and the DM to the game and is called “Kobold Hall”.

I’d drawn some maps on graph paper, had miniatures ready, had snacks, drinks and pizza menu at the ready and sorted out whatever chairs I had for people to sit on.

ArrivalsPeople started arriving around an hour prior to the start of the game. Eventually when everyone was there we had: myself, Ben, Callum, Chris, Keith Tom & Will which made for quite a good campaign. They started off making characters and Will had brought a variety of good information with him.

Character Creation

Ah yes, this is where it started to go askew. I know the old character creation way of roll six lots of six sided dice four times, (known as 4d6 in the game) take away the lowest number from a set of four, add the other three together and that’s a stat. Turns out people were confused and I only had one Player’s Handbook to pass around when people wanted to see abilities and the like. Will & Callum had pre-generated characters whereas everyone else carried on with the misshapen things they had created including a Dragonborn named Tits McGee.

Hook & Adventuring

So I had taken the base adventure of Kobold Hall from the DM’s Guide to get myself used to DMing and the players used to playing. The guide provided a few great hooks, but somehow it was decided (by my players) that the group had gone off on a stag do, and had drunkenly stumbled in to the cave and decided upon genocide of the Kobolds within.

One player got bored and intentionally fell in to the slime pit (later discovered to be Kobold leavings) and was disbanded for the rest of the game. The players triggered a few traps as they eventually sobered up on their travel in to the large hall. A few odd things happened that I wasn’t ready for before the players accomplished the mission.

• A drake killed more than one player due to some natural 20s on my side, but I let it slide for the first game
• The party decided it would be a good idea to capture and interrogate a Kobold, which I was very unprepared for, but managed to fumble through and convince them (in-character) to release him. What a mistake guys…
• A player came up with a novel idea to trap an annoying drake in the newly acquired bag of holding and leave it in there until it died…
• They ran away from the dragon initially, then chose to drag down a Kobold corpse for it to eat…

The dragon was of course, the main boss of this mini-adventure, and though it had some devastating attacks the players knocked it down quickly and then one player gutted it for all it was worth. Tail, heart, teeth, lungs, scales, everything.

The campaign ended there, and next up we have: Nurion’s Treasure.

Solipsist Syndrome

So late night, a few days ago I sent Will another pitch, (first one linked to here), which was semi-based on me thinking about the above show and then my own sketches of weird shit like Monktupuses and the aptly named “Angry Love Monster”.

Late night pitch idea. Artist suffer delusions making them believe the things they've drawn are real...but maybe they are.

He cranked out a nice introduction with some cool things, and a world I’d love to see revisited. It’s up here.

Speaking of @fragmad he’s going to comprise these flash fiction/#600words pitches in to a print on demand book with any luck, which I shall be spending some monies on. Read through the rest of his stuff and see what you think.

Long Live The King

@fragmad (otherwise known as Will) sent out requests for some flash fiction (short stories based on pitches), so I sent along this:

a king passes in fantasy-medieval times, and the sons find a way to name the rightful heir...with weapons of course.

I like fantasy stories, and stories that deal with monarchs in the times that we used to settle things with swords and spears, so this was simple. Anyways, read it on Will’s blog of Quick Tales and see what you think.

I certainly enjoyed it, Will’s been a good writer since I’ve known him. He might be up for a few more pitches in the future. @ him on Twitter, or comment on his blog and see.

Oh yeah, that is Henry VII by the way, just thought he’d do well at representing kings in general.

What do I need to write? – By fragmad

This a guest blog post by fragmad/Ginja/Will. He runs about three blogs, but I prefer his short fiction blog, so I’ll link to that. It’s called Quick Tales.

I’ve known him for a while, and he writes some damn good stuff, so take a look and read some of it. Especially his Moon Station story, which starts here.

If you want to do a guest blog post, just e-mail it to me, at pkmntrainerj@gmail.com and it’ll go up. There’s some conditions if you want to do a review, but apart from that, it’s all fair game.

I spend a lot of time giving issues like this a lot of thought. It saves me from thinking about important and worthy subjects like getting a job, or finding a stable relationship, or the really important questions in life like what is good and evil? This kind of thinking is the shallow end of worthy subjects, but it's good stuff to nail down. I'm sure what I'm talking about can be taken across to other disciplines such as drawing, or anything remotely creative, but I'll stick to my own thing. That's putting words in readable order one and another that entertain other people.

Now I'm hesitant to say that I need anything as banal as inspiration in order to write anything. I don't need inspiration to cook a fucking fantastic meal, or even to get out of bed. Indeed I strongly suspect that anyone who claims they are waiting for inspiration in order to write anything really doesn't want to write anything. They just want to enjoy the mystery and the glamour (what?) of writing without putting the effort in.

Fuck them!

No what I need to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard (apart from food, shelter, support), is purpose. I have to be writing for a reason. Sure, that reason can be practice, it could be to convey a message, or just the sheer bloody entertainment of it. There has to be a reason though.

I feel like Will’s described when I draw too, there has to be a reason for it. Whether it's just to entertain myself, or because it's in my head aching to get out.

There is one reason that I will never again use to write something. I'm never going to write something to impress anyone. Especially if it means that they never see what you write because you are too shamed by the results. But that's me and my own damage.
I slowly came to the realisation that purpose was a central need for me when writing anything by reading a book on writing plays called 'The Art of Dramatic Writing'.

It's a good book, and if you want to know how to write a good play you can do no worse than reading that book. The first chapter was a small revelation for for me.

That first chapter poses that most successful plays have a premise. "True love conquerors even death," for Romeo and Juliet for example. And that these successful plays are always driving towards demonstrating that premise.

For me it really is no different. Everything I write, and to be honest everything I do with gusto has a purpose. I don't do things senselessly and at random despite appearances of often doing exactly that.

What's the point of this? Just sharing an idea.

Hope you liked fragmad’s post. If you want to do a post, then send me an e-mail and it’ll go up, and I’ll link to your blog/site.