Funny Preconceived Notions

[Tinker Gnome]

I came into D&D back in junior high, primarily through video games like Final Fantasy. When I ran my first session (oh, yeah, I didn't know anyone else who played, so I DMed for my friends), I understood most of the fundamental rules of the game quite well, but I still had some drifting notions from my video game background. For example, the PCs in that first session were able to pay a few gold at an inn and, the next morning, sure enough, all their HP had been restored! The concepts that sleeping can occur anywhere and that wounds don't go away overnight both came later.

Ahh, video game carry overs.

Early on in our games our whole group discourgaed summoning monsters because they thought that the monster took XP away from the group. It was like that is some videogame I think.

We also had the whole sleep for a night and be fully healed. Actually we still do, cause we like it that way.

Another one was that an unconsious PC automatically gets up(No AOOs provoked) when they are brought from neative HP to positive HP. Even if it is not their turn.

We also have ranged healing. We later found out it was touch based, and we tried it that way for a while, but we went back to having it be ranged.

 

[rossik]

i dont have a big story, but all my magical itens came with name tags

"potion of healing"
"sword +1"
and so on...


should be funny to see a fighter traying to sell:

"hey man, this sword plus is really good, you should buy it!"

it looks like he is selling two swords..eheheh

 

[Masquerade]

We also had the whole sleep for a night and be fully healed. Actually we still do, cause we like it that way.

Recently, I've actually been doing it that way as well, although I understand why the RAW doesn't use this approach.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'd never heard the word 'cleric' in terms of religion before D&D. When I heard kids in school talking about it, I assumed for some reason that you had fighters, wizards and ... some sort of powerless scribe or 'office worker'-type. Who in their right mind would play one of those?

I've always disliked cleric as a class name for similar reasons. I'd prefer priest. I'm also not particularly fond of
- fighter: just doesn't sound like a capable combatant to me; has a similar ring as 'brawler'
- rogue: apart from being a constant source of terrible misspellings it doesn't seem to capture the whole archetype; it's a tiny bit of an improvement over thief, though

Regarding preconceived notions: I absolutely dislike chainmail bikinis on fantasy book covers...

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Ahh, video game carry overs.

Early on in our games our whole group discourgaed summoning monsters because they thought that the monster took XP away from the group. It was like that is some videogame I think.

We also had the whole sleep for a night and be fully healed. Actually we still do, cause we like it that way.

Another one was that an unconsious PC automatically gets up(No AOOs provoked) when they are brought from neative HP to positive HP. Even if it is not their turn.

We also have ranged healing. We later found out it was touch based, and we tried it that way for a while, but we went back to having it be ranged.

I had the same issue when I was wondering why, if the party wanted to run away, the monsters wouldn't...y'know vanish and maybe the PCs might lose some GP.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Surely I wasn't the only one whose clerics were running around wielding lucerne hammers before finding out that the darn things were a pole arm with pointy, blood-shedding spikes...

I think most who played Clerics (1E anyway) made that mistake!

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Back when I first started a TWF rogue-fighter, I saw the "Half Strength to offhand" and thought that meant he got half his Str to attack as well as damage.

A couple of months in I was reading the Drizzt stat block in FRCS and thinking "Hey, they got the math wrong...wait, do they ever actually say that, let me look...OH (BLEEP)!!!!"

Brad

 

[Psion]

When I made my first character, I thought 3d6 meant "roll a D6 and multiply by 3".

 

[Unkabear]

I am not sure how many other people started this way. But this comic tends to trace the beginnings of my gaming life. Casual Gamers you may have to choose newest comic and go to the beginning...but still a fun read.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

We used to have hideous problems with multiple attacks per round; our multiclassed guys at relatively high levels would have only a single good attack because we assumed you actually had to be level six to get the second attack (And keep going in that class above level six to improve it.)