My Newbie Game, commentary and thoughts

[Nemesis Destiny]

The Icelandic media had a lot of fun making fun of the foreign press' attempts.

I'll bet they did; can't say I blame them

Here in soviet Canuckistan, in typical Canadian fashion, the press made fun of themselves and their own inability to pronounce it properly. I love our self-deprecating sense of humour

And sorry for the partial threadjacking! Carry on!

 

[Mircoles]

Characters:

When she asked me to explain the warlord class after the session, I failed utterly at defining it. "Uh... battle leader, but not necessarily actual leader... you have a sword... healing is important."

I find that this image seems to give people the general idea of what a warlord does

By ghoulglum at 2011-04-22[/IMG]

For Inspiring Word, I like this one.

By ghoulglum at 2011-04-22[/IMG]

I'm currently playing a warlord and I mostly need to get use to the "granting attacks" part. I'm definitely not the "stand back and shout orders" type of warlord. I like to hit things when I play a martial character.
But, a warlord can be hard to figure out.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thank you very much for this thread - its great to read about your attempts to break off the rust and DM again. I especially like your comments on the personalities of the players themselves - its often a dynamic that isn't talked about much here.

As for your warlord, I'm glad you've resolved it by having the player swap to a cleric - having your player's happy and invested in their characters is very important.

As for the wizard, while I understand the root of the player's dissatisfaction may be some of her RL issues, there may well be a class that is appropriate for her that lessens those issues. In that regard, I think a controller may be a particularly bad match in that it reinforces her doubts - controllers tend to be very tactical to play, and their effect on the battle less visible than the strikers, who are knocking things dead. So, I think controllers are a class that require a certain amount of self confidence in one's own choices, specially since it is their daily powers that are truly battle changing.

As such, I would recommend she switch to a sorceror (if you are using PH2) - its a striker (so she'll be knocking things dead and otherwise effecting the battlefield in a more visible way) but still is arcane and has a strong magical vibe so she should still be able to "get her Harry Potter on".

Either that or use tons and tons of minions until she gets in the groove - she should feel better about herself when she learns that it was her that prevented the party from being torn appart by hordes of baddies. For some of those encounters, be sure to have the terrain funnel the minions together so that the wizard gets the best use of her powers.

Oh,a nd as a fellow homebrewer - kudos and good luck! Communicating your image of the world and gradually revealing its secrets can be highly frustrating at times, but the "aha" moments by the players can be pure joy for a DM.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Exam season is upon us and I can't shake the fear that it will kill the game in it's infancy. None the less, I'm proceeding under the assumption that soon as exams finish, we'll game.

In the meanwhile, I'm gonna try to jot down a few things that have been bouncing around in my head.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Rusted shut

I was never a very tactical DM and I've never been that rule-savvy, so I spent most of my prep-time studying the rules and the tactical aspects of the game.

While I had worked on some ideas, I didn't have much of a plot going into it; I just assumed I would pull something out of my arse. It's how I did my best DMing back in the day; I'd start games based only on vague ideas--maybe some future plot hooks jotted down, waiting for an opportunity to be brought in--and then I'd counter whatever the players did with the first thing that came to mind.

I never considered that I could get rusty at improv, but boy, was I. I drew a blank to whatever question the players asked me and all actions they took. Luckilly, I grew wiser to my handicap as the night progressed and did a better job at hiding my befuddlement. But the session started out with a lot of 'uuuh...' and 'erhm...' and empty stares.

I don't know why I expected that particular talent to be immune to rust, as if it were handed down to me by the gods; as if it didn't need training like any other skill.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I think this is one of those things that is *not* like riding a bicycle where you just can't "forget" how to do it. It might be because creative skills flourish with practise, and degrade with time. The last time I picked up my electric guitar... oh man, it was bad. I was never amazing at it, but I was starting to be impressed by my progress and ability to improvise within a song. Last time - I could barely remember anything!

All I can say is just keep at it and don't give up!

 

[Viking Bastard]

I think this is one of those things that is *not* like riding a bicycle where you just can't "forget" how to do it. It might be because creative skills flourish with practise, and degrade with time.

Yeah. I'm always running into that. Hobbies and interests I assume I'm good at, because at some point in the past I was great at them. I think it's a part of my tendency to really get into something, only to lose interest and turn to something else once I've mastered it. Because I was fairly competent at it when I stopped, I assume I still am (it's the last memory of it I have).

But no. Doesn't work like that.

It's not that I went into it thinking that I would be the master of improv, I just didn't consider it at all.

I've started jotting down whatever adventure ideas I have--encounters, NPCs, places, cool scenarios and such--whenever I have them, as well as character and place names to have in stock. This is not only for reference when I'm on the spot, but also in the hope that just capturing the thoughts when I have them will help me train my reflexes.