Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DarrenGMiller" data-source="post: 1986465" data-attributes="member: 23174">Okay, this story is going to make me sound like a horrible DM (which some of my players and former players undoubtedly think I am anyway)... A long time ago in the glory days of 1st Edition D&D, I was home for the summer after my freshman year of college.  Nobody on my college campus played D&D except for a few really strange guys in a back room in the basement of my dorm who were NEVER seen in any actual clases (true story), so I was desperate for gaming.  I got most of my players together, put out the word for a few new players to join up and drew up a homebrew (actually had been working on it in my spare time all year) high level campaign so that my players could get a change to play their old characters again (we gamed from 8th grade all through high school together). When the time came for the first session, I 12 players showed up on my front porch for the first session (okay, huge screened porch... I loved that room).  Yes, 12 players!  I had gamed with 3 of them previously and several of them were a bit younger than I had hoped (including one 8th grade kid who had only played a few sessions).  So, we started the session after a quick (VERY quick glance at the character sheets... I mean, there were a LOT of players). In my scenario, a trio of UBER NPC's kidnaps the characters from their home worlds and promises to send them home after performing a service for them (which would conveniently fill the three months of sessions before my return to college).  They tell the PC's a story revolving around some despicably evil bad guys who have taken over their world that can only be deposed by strongest heroes of other worlds.  They (the trio) had the power to bring the PC's there, but not kill the "bad guys." In reality, the trio of NPC's were the bad guys.  I was counting on the PC's to go with my intro and slowly learn this.  One of my veteran players saw through this immediately and ordered the party into defensive positions.  This was not going well. Keep in mind that the NPC's were powerful.  Also keep in mind that I hadn't counted on 12 players.  Keep in mind as well that I did a VERY QUICK scan of the character sheets and had several players new to my group. A skrmish quickly ensued that saw the party outmatched, but just barely, since they had the advantage of numbers.  The skirmish resolves into a standoff, with neither side making a major move for several minutes of feinting and repositioning. Then come the fateful, dreaded words... "I raise the horn on the cord around my neck and blow long and hard." Uh oh.  "What horn?" "The one on my character sheet, right here." The player quickly hands back the character sheet and there it is, right where I should have seen it had my scan been more thorough. "Okay.   You blow a fearsome note on your horn and... <rolling of dice> 00.  Oh crap (though I am sure my language was stronger than that)!  Many figures appear around the battlefield.  Directly behind your adversaries, you see a many beautiful figures and handsome faces.  One strong looking warrior rides a six-legged steed and another carries a huge hammer.  As you see the look of fear on the faces of your three opponents, you turn and see an entire tribe, or more, of frost giants advancing from behind you.  Roll initiative." The PC had blown the "Horn of Valhalla."  It was right there on his sheet and I missed it!  Everyone was slaughtered.  We took a long walk (on which many strange things happened and one of my players caused a horrible auto accident... that is another story entirely) and came back and set up a time for the next session.  New campaign, fewer players (that was my only session with about four of them and one of my three vets left too)...  What a summer! DM</blockquote>

Verification