Last Saturday, the 22 was the first session of my game. It got off to a bit of a bumpy start. Mostly it was my fault, I sent out the world info very late and the game happened to be three days before Christmas. One player chose not to play in the session and we had 3 who didn’t show up. This left me with 4 active players.
When the host’s wife decided she didn’t feel like playing I took control of her PC because she was playing the cleric. I think that shocked her a little bit, but I couldn’t let my PCs go on without a healer. In general I just let them know there were more guards they just weren’t being talkative. Since it was the first game I didn’t have a frame of reference to portray the character beyond giving out healing.
From there on I looked over some random encounter tables and gave them something to do. They ran across a pack of wild dogs, which had the hilarious consequence of having the PCs need to make checks to make sure they didn’t hit the barbarian’s pet war dog. They also ran astray of some giant mantis and a boar. A couple times I knocked PCs out of the fight, but nobody died…yet.
In all I think the best part was when the PCs got robbed by a thief. He only stole one thing, a letter for a diplomat in the capitol that the paladin had been carrying. They managed to catch him, and beat him until unconscious. They turned him over to the Caravan leader, but tried to question him themselves.
It was the first time I really got into an NPC role. In fact to portray him I was actually channeling one of my DMs. He loves to play the bastard rogue and that’s just what this NPC was. As a player the DM went for the paladin this time and he gave me the hairy eyeball when the thief gave non-answers to questions.
My personal favorite:
Paladin: Who hired you?
Thief: Tall guy, gray hair.
Mage: Can you be more specific?
Thief: (indicates taller than himself) About this high, gray hair.
In the end I finished the game once they’d gone to the capitol and delivered the letter. Three of the players for the session were DMs themselves and they all told me that they’d had a great time. I could have cried I was so excited I didn’t fuck it up.
It was a little rocky, and it felt like I had no earthy idea what I was doing, but in the end all of my players had fun and that was probably the best feeling in the world. I know I am neurotic sometimes but I think if I can remember that this is not so terribly serious I can get by.
RPG Lady 