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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 5519083" data-attributes="member: 92305">Furhter to the point in the OP... I remember my very first game session. It was the summer of 1982. I was a sophomore in high school. I'd heard about this "D&D thing" for a while, but had no idea what it was all about. "Is it like monopoly?" A good friend of mine had me over on a Saturaday. I rolled up a party--it was just me and him, so I played all the PCs. We spent half the morning making my main character and some of his friends--a thief, a mage, and a cleric. My fried was putting me through the infamous Caves of Chaos (The Keep on the Borderlands module). Early in the game, my party approached a locked door. The DM asked me what I wanted to do. I said that I'd have the thief approach the door, but not touch it, and my main character would cover him with his crossbow. The DM made me show him exactly how the thief was standing. I showed him how the thief got close to the door, went down on one knee, and peeked through the keyhold, all the time pulling his picks and tools from a pouch at his belt. My main character stood over the thief, behind him, with the cross both shoulder, pointing at the door, over the thief's head. The thief picked the lock. He slowly turned the know then pushed the door open. It was dark in the next room. We could see nothing. With the door open, my theif leaned from the waist, putting his head into the room to look around the sides, down the walls. That's when the goblin, that was stading just inside the door, up against the wall, with his arm raised, let his club fall on the back of my thief's head, braining him. The thief slumped immediately to the ground. In a split second, my main toon fired his crossbow, nailing the goblin. I'll never forget the DM's description. Here it is almost 30 years later, and I'm still talking about it. My crossbow bolt slammed into the goblin on the upper part of his shoulder close to his neck. It drove deep and punched out his armpit. The goblin started to scream and fell to the ground. Mechanics-wise, the goblin still had one hit point left, but since my bolt had almost killed him, my DM made the encounter very cool and memorable. The goblin was flopping around on the ground, his blood seeping from the top of his shoulder and from his armpit. My main character approached him, put a boot on him to steady the target, then fired another bolt into the goblin's head (it was a double shot, over-under crossbow). That bolt nailed the poor beast to the ground. The thief wasn't dead, but the DM made him loopy for several hours. He still had a few hit points too, but the DM said that he wasn't "all there". We wrapped his head, and the cleric did what he could for him. But, it was some game hours later until the thief was fully functional again. Man, what a good time that was. So memorable. So vivid. God, it was fun.     I'm not sure it would have been as memorable had the goblin just taken the first crossbow bolt and kept on truckin' with his 1 hit point, or that I would have been as concerned about the thief if there was no effect to the blow the goblin laid on him. They say the devil is in the details, and it was those details, embellished by the DM, that made that game so memorable for me and got me so hooked on this hobby. I think, back in the old days, more people played that way. D&D wasn't a wargame-straightjacket of rules but rather a frame in which to tell your story and entice players with masterful visuals and consequences. Back then, if you walked through a swamp, the DM might just describe the leeches you find on your legs and then tell you that you've picked up a slight cough. Today, though, some players refuse to be told by the DM that their characters have picked up a disease or a cold from walking in the swamp. They want a CON check, and if they fail, they want to see results on a chart somewhere. I think D&D is missing something when it is reduced to dice throws and hit point count. We forget what those stats represent. Now, was there a critical hit chart we rolled on? No. Was there some RAW rule that said goblins can be taken out of the picture if they've only got 1 hp left? No. Is it "in the game" that the thief was brained and loopy for a few hours after taking a blow like that to the back of the head? No. It was just a DM with common sense and a player who trusted him. What I'm advocating is not the only way to play, and it's not the only "good" way to play. But, it is an alternative to someone looking to find the spark in their game again.</blockquote>

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