Do You Remember Your First Game?

[Archimedes]

How many people here recall their first D&D games?

I was exploring the Google Usenet archives when I stumbled across one of my very very old posts. This was my response to a thread on ‘first characters’. The grammar is very crude, but I did correct most of my spelling, however.

My first D&D game, also my first role-playing game, was back in 1978. The DMG had just come out.

I was invited to play this "new game" by a friend of mine, Mandy, that knew about my fascination with maps, exploring, and crawling around in caves.

There were five other people already there. It was obvious that this was everyone’s first game. It took us all about two hours to roll up the characters. There were only two PH's for six players and one DM (Demented Moron). The DM was the DM because he was the only one that had a DMG.

We rolled 3d6 for each stat, filled the stats in as they were rolled. My character's highest stat was in Intelligence, so the DM suggested I play a magic-user. Why not? I was happy to roll up max on hp, a whopping grand total of 4. I don't completely remember what spells he had. Magic missile and charm person I think.

I didn't quite get the concept of role-playing yet, so giving my pile of statistics a name was a problem. Since the character was a MU, I just wrote down MU as a name. Well, the DM told me "M - U isn't a name, heck, it isn't even a word". I thought about it for all of two seconds. "Ok, I'll just call him Moo". The DM gave me a sour look and everyone else in the room started to laugh and make cow noises. "Alright", I said, "Moo the Magnificent!" Several other players were rolling on the floor laughing at this point. There really is no accounting for some people's sense of humor. The DM gave up and moved on to the other players as they were recovering.

Mandy's character had a ridiculously high strength, so she played a fighter named Barbie the Barbarian. The DM kept his mouth shut.

And so it begins.

The DM started the game by putting the whole party down in front of a door with a signing that read "The Dungeon" in big rusty iron letters.

Round 1:
We discuss who's going to open the door. Barbie has the highest strength, so somebody shoves her forward and shouts "Ladies first". Barbie rips open the door to reveal a very large, very red dragon. The round ends with the DM saying, "Roll initiative."

Round 2:
The Dragon gains initiative and belches in our general direction. The DM tells us to roll saving throws. Barbie and the character behind her fail their rolls and died. Then it's my turn.

"Roll a twenty sided die", the DM said.

I didn't like the sound of the word 'die', but I rolled one anyway. "It's a seventeen", I said.

"Good, you made your saving throw", he said.

"OK, I cast magic missile at the dragon"

"Wait, first you lose 44 hit points."

"Oh… I don't have that many."

"You’re dead".

Thus ended the short career of Moo the Magnificent. The three characters behind me faired no better. We all glared at the DM as he explained, “It’s Dungeons & Dragons! It’s got to have a dragon…”

Well, it was back to rolling up new characters. This time my rolls were absolutely average. The highest score was a dexterity of 12 and the lowest was a wisdom of 9. After actually looking through the rules, I figured I'd try to play a halfling fighter/thief. I'd read The Hobbit, this character I could understand a bit better.

Mandy rolled a high wisdom for her character, so she played a cleric named Nancy the Nun. She had a certain way with names back in the old days.

Naming was still a problem for me, though. This time I called the character Moo Foot the Mediocre. For revenge against the name, the DM cursed the character with cold feet. Any one that came into contact with Moo Foot's feet took 1d4 in damage from the cold. For a halfling, this put some limitations on his sex life. I protested loudly, the rest of the group, angry at losing their characters, protested even louder. They would have protested anything by this point. The DM told us to look up the spells Stinking Cloud and Cloudkill. The feet could get worse.

So it began again.

Once again, our group stood in front of the door marked with rusty letters stating the obvious. We all grumbled in unison.

I decided to check the door for traps just to test out Moo Foot's abilities. I didn't find a single trap, or an ability for that matter. Since I was the one that said there were no traps, they made me open the door.

This time, instead of a dragon, a giant centipede rushed us. The party gained initiative and I kicked the charging centipede, freezing it into a bugpop. The irony and symmetry of the situation escaped neither us or our annoyed DM. We picked up our 5 cp of treasure and continued on to the next room and the next group of critters, I think it was a pack of giant rats or something.

Thus began the long, but lonely, career of Moo Foot the Mediocre. Well, he did eventually find a set of adamantine vacuum insulated boots, but that was years later.

Those were the days… I’ve had many games off and on over the years, good and bad, but none of them have captured the childish fun of those first few years.

Sam

 

[Piratecat]

For the first month that I played, my monk never hit a thing. Then I discovered the difference between a d12 and a d20....

Sigh.

 

[Crothian]

My first character started out dead. I had a 4 con, and rolled a 1 on first level HPs.

When I was told I needed to make a new character cause he died, I almost quit. That was in 82 I think.

 

[Kai Lord]

My first character started out dead. I had a 4 con, and rolled a 1 on first level HPs.

When I was told I needed to make a new character cause he died, I almost quit. That was in 82 I think.

Freaking hilarious!

 

[Crothian]

Freaking hilarious!

Well, it is now. I was pretty mad at the time.

 

[DM with a vengence]

This is actually my second game, but really the first one that mattered, as I took two actions in my first game.

The Character: Kun Laan, Elven Ranger, 3rd level
I don't remember much about him, but I know that he was the first demonstration of my Min/Maxing Powergaming abilities.
He was a wood elf, because I wanted the extra strength, which is good, but on the down side, he had negative con, skill points in Profession: Guide, and above all, was a ranger. His primary weapon was a bow.

The party:
Me
[Long Latin Name] Halfling Pyromaniac Sorcerer dual-wielding Kamas. He should have something like -8 and -14 to attacks, dealing 1d3-1 points of damage.
FUBAR-Necromancer cleric of Wee-Jas, uses a Scythe and wear leather armor.
An Evil Druid
A Half-Orc Barbarian.
An Elven Monk.
2 Wizards
A Cleric

We begin the adventure in a small dwarf town whose mine has been invaded by trogledytes. We all go down the mine, except for the Monk and Druid, who remain in town, and hack our way through some entry rooms. I do better than most because I can climb onto ledges and my attack is pretty good. However the DM has no sense of the rules and resolves attacks by rolling a d20. Above ten, hit, below ten, miss, no modifiers or AC.

After a few rooms, we arrive at this bucket in the corner. The closer you get to it the hotter it becomes. We throw things at it and piss on it and do all of the things newbie adventurers are supposed to do. Objects evaporate, burst into flames, or melt according to what they are. Eventually, the half-orc barbarian just grabs the bucket. He bursts into flames and is reincarnated on the spot, except now he's deaf. This leaves the problem of communicating because he can't hear and can't read. The Monk meanwhile, attempts to seduce one of the dwarf inhabitants. The Druid murders the shopkeeper for no reason.

We try and open a door, which turns out to be a mimic with a cleric behind it. The cleric casts searing light and the door hits someone. I run back start shooting, while everybody else closes, sets fire to the door, and hacks it to splinters. We kill the cleric and some more trogs, and eventually go into this throne room with a bunch of trogs. I move along the walls firing arrows at the trogs while the rest of the party charges. Eventually everybody is dead except for the big baddied, who's at negative. I go over and CdG him. The Druid attempts to kill the Monk, but fails and is killed him self. He is reincarnated as a small furry creature that could only speak Gaelic (We had an illustrated Gaelic phrasebook floating around, so good fun.)

The DM awards experience. Unfortunantly he hasn't gotten up to page 166 in the DMG yet, so I get 25 XP. Then I get my first chance at DMing, give the party 3x their level in magic items, and send the 4th level characters against Fire Giants and a Great Wyrm Red Dragon.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

It was sometime around '91 (only 12 years!). The players were myself and my friend Nick's two brothers, with Nick DMing. We were playing the old red box DnD... I remember my character was Beorn, a Chaotic (there being no evil) bastard. A fighter I think. I still recall him tramping over the dead body of the party's cleric to get in some swings at the bugbear. Ahh, those were the days...

 

[Grim]

My first game was right after 3E came out. I had a half elf rogue named Hobin Kobad. I made up his name after going through the MM randomly and finding Hobgoblin and Kobold. He was a thief with a deathwish. He died at least once every single session. We spent the first session going through the Goblin Cave, and then through a Magic Carnival. My DM wasnt very creative back then. At fourth Hobin multiclassed into wizard, and only became good at 8th, where he started using fireball. Before that, he never sneak attacked, never hid, never used magic missle, or invisiblilty or anything. I had no idea what I was doing, didnt know the rules, and didnt look at spells much. At 8th we ended the campain with everyone being killed in the Forge of Fury. (stupid dragon!)

After that I went through a variety of characters: a fighter, a mage, a ranger, a rather successful and memorable dwarven barbarian named Stimpy Vermincrusher (hats of to Wulf Ratbane for the name idea, a cleric, a psion, a dwarven rogue named Smithy Goldpants (he really had gold pants!).

And just recently I rolled up my favorite character so far, a Gnomish Cleric, Tom Badgerclaw (name stolen almost directly from PC's story hour character. TomTom) Tom is part of a holy order of the Church of Gond dedicated to bringing his holy light to the entire world. And since our party is going to run City of the Spider Queen when it comes out, he is currently busy trying to convert Drow. "Embrace the Light!" doesnt work very well as a greating in the underdark. Oops.

 

[JohnClark]

The character I first played was a halfling rogue named Dimitry Popov (fans of Tom Clancy will see my lack of creativity in the naming ). He was from neverwinter (cuz I thought fire elementals were cool and drizzt was the only FR character I knew of) and was a total kleptomaniac (which didn't work well with a paladin in the party). The funniest thing I remember about him was when we were 3rd or 4th level we were in waterdeep and I was trying to buy my way into the local theives guild. Our DM moved us up quickly in levels so I still had very little concept of how things worked in this world, including money. I had somehow ended up with 900gp from our latest loot, and when I found the half-orc guarding the place, he asked for a little something to let me by. So I reached into my pouch and produced 50gp for him. The party never let me carry much money after that.

 

[EricNoah]

My first game was In Search of the Unknown. I only really remember the first encounter, it was the only place in the dungeon where my DM bothered to place a monster.

My human fighter walks toward the front entrance. A grotesque man-shaped creature in armor with a sword emerges and sets his lantern on the ground.

I run away.

My DM explains that this is just an orc, and that I can kill him. So I go back and I kill him. Hurrah!