Your first adventure

[KainG]

So in a few weeks, I'll be DMing my first game in nearly a decade of following the game, but not actually playing. It's going to be with a group of friends in a similar rut as me (played before, but haven't in recent years), so I've got a nice little tutorial-like adventure created so we can practice the rules.

I'm curious to hear what your first adventures were like and how, if it did, kick off a long running campaign.

Thanks!

 

[Crothian]

THe first adventure I ran was a mess of creative stupidity that six and seven year olds come up with. I don't recall much of my early gaming days but it was very different then how the books read.

The first published adventure I ran was the Lost City and it had the PCs being very friendly to many NPCs so we (becasue I was firmly on the side of the players as a DM back then) could gain their trust and then betray and kill them once they showed us their treasure.

 

[The Green Adam]

That was a long time ago...

In a galaxy far, far away. Brooklyn actually.

The first game I ever ran was original D&D in the summer of 1978. I'd been playing for just about a year when I went off to summer camp and a friend brought the game in. Few people had heard of it or played it and since I had the most experience I became the default DM.

The adventure was, as almost all of them to follow, largely ad-libbed. There was a picture of an underground cavern in the rulebook with what appeared to be a spiral staircase. I created a story in which a wizard was conducting a strange ritual to summon a dragon (for reasons I forget) and the staircase lead to his sanctum which was somewhat like a pocket dimension (larger inside then it should be).

While it didn't really kick of a campaign (we used to make up characters and new camapigns often) it did help us develop a style and find out what we liked and didin't like in gaming.

AD

 

[Asmo]

The first adventure I ran was The Sunless Citadel. It was great fun, both for me and the players.
Everything did come to an abrupt end with a TPK in the following adventure, The Forge of Fury (also an excellent adventure).

Asmo

 

[El Mahdi]

The first adventure I ran was The Labrynth of Madness, but it was just for a one off, for only one session. Our groups regular DM either wasn't available or wanted a break for a week (don't remember which - it was 15 years ago). So, the group got to mess around with making some high level characters and try a really dangerous adventure. It didn't become a campaign since we had intended it to be just one game session.

On a sidenote, I put the adventure in FR and had Elminster ask the characters to seek something in the Labrynth (I don't remember the exact plot hook I used). One of the players decided they wanted to taunt Elminster (as players are wont to do) while they were camping. Instead of using some uber powerful attack spell to dispense with the annoying PC, I remembered those articles in Dragon where Elminster and some other powerful mages would meet at Ed Greenwoods house. So, since I surmised Elminster is familiar with modern day earth, he teleported the annoying PC. The PC found himself held by a bar in a small cart (like a mining cart - or a roller coaster), while it was being pulled up a really tall hill on tracks. After clicking to the top, and the PC unable to get out, the cart tops the hill and starts screaming downhill at a speed the PC has never experienced. Just before it reaches the bottom, the PC is brought back to where he was beside the fire, unharmed except for hair and clothes in dissaray. Everybody got a kick out of it (including the annoying PC).

After that, I didn't DM again until a couple of years later. I ran a Dungeon adventure called The Object of Desire, from issue 50. It provided the party with a cool base of operations after completing the adventure, and did become a campaign. The adventure worked so well, I've pulled it out, and blown the dust off it for the current group I'm DM'ing for.

 

[exile]

My first adventure was almost 25 years ago. I played a thief in Basic D&D. I had a hand axe and a large sack. I remember fighting wolves at the entrance of a dungeon. It certainly was not the start of a long campaign.

Chad

 

[blargney the second]

Kill Bargle!
-blarg

 

[That One Guy]

First game of D&D I actually played in was a 3.0 game. A friend invited us over -we were a huge group - and we played. He didn't really have the rules down too well, so another friend in that group suggested some of us split off and start a new game. So we did. He and I switched off DMing duties and built an ever-growing world. That ran for about a year. Then one day in the middle of a session I asked if anyone really still wanted to play. We took a break and then started a new game a few months later.

My best game was a one shot that turned into a two shot that turned into a year and a half game.

 

[Henry]

My first time DMing was with an old 1980 Basic D&D box set. It involved running a group of first level PCs very poorly through White Plume Mountain (a module from another system of D&D, built for 7 levels above them!) and they all died about two rooms into the place, unsurprisingly. We were 10 years old, and had no clue how the frigging to hit and save charts worked, so we told it entirely through story. Pretty far cry from today! (well, not really -- what we did they'd call LARPing, but without the actual play acting.)

If you are looking for any tips, the biggest one I have is to ask the guys and gals in the group to be patient with you, as it's new territory for you, and that you want everybody having fun to be first in mind. People are usually more than willing to cut you some slack, especially friends, and don't fret over a lot of rules calls and "doing everything perfectly." You'll screw up some things the first time out; Just look at some of the above stories for proof of that!

Remember, even Gary Gygax and Monte Cook were terrible DMs at one time, too...

 

[S. Baldrick]

Keep on the Borderlands was my first adventure. I played a Basic D&D elf whose name escapes me. It was the summer of 1981.
I was totally hooked after I rolled the dice and rolled high enough to hit and dispatch the first 3 orcs that attacked me. Unfortunately, my brave elf was eventually knocked into the negatives. The DM was allowing negative hit points so the elf lived to fight another day after the party cleric (played by the DM's brother Stan who, at that time, couldn't stand me) healed me up.
It didn't lead to a campaign and my elf was killed the next time I played him when he ventured into In Search of the Unknown