It was the summer of 2015. My family was planning a week-long beach trip. My brother was bringing along one of his friends, and I had invited my then-boyfriend (now-husband). I was talking to him over FaceTime a few days before the trip, when my brother walked into my room. The three of us chatted for a few minutes before one of us joked about playing D&D during the trip, a joke that snowballed into his friend starting preparations for running said game.
Context:
A few weeks ago, my brother had regaled me with the story of how his party had survived an encounter with a beholder in the middle of a dungeon. This was not the first time he had talked about his adventures with his recently-formed D&D group, and his enthusiasm was clear. He only needed a brief explanation of what sort of monster a beholder was for me to grasp the daring and mettle required to face one down!
As well, the folks over at GameTrailers (now over at Easy Allies) had started recording their own forays into the game, a series called Tabletop Adventures. My husband and I had started watching because we already liked the personalities at the table.
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard of tabletop role-playing, as another friend had encouraged me to check out 3.5e and possibly join a group. I admit, I was intimidated looking at the 3.5e character sheet, more worried I’d miss some critical component of character creation than excited at the prospect of connecting with a friend who’d moved away.
But, to start with a group of people close to me, to start alongside another new person, to start playing in-person—I felt like I could do that! 5th Edition was supposed to be easy to learn, easy on newcomers like me.
The Adventure Begins
We started brainstorming characters that night, though mostly through finding various (and I do mean various) homebrew race options online.
Once we actually convened, the Player’s Handbook was ordered, dice were arranged for, and character creation began the day before our DM was to arrive. While my brother made a dragonborn ranger, my husband a dragonborn rogue, I rolled up a half-elven sorcerer.
Her name was Celeste Loneoak, and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing. But, I really loved the Wild Magic Surge table in the PHB. It is… so good. It makes me smile to this day.
Our DM had concocted a straightforward idea: our characters had been arrested and were routinely thrown into arena-style combat. I’m not sure he expected us to continue past that week, but we attempted to over Skype once the trip ended. It fell victim to the common campaign-killer, scheduling issues, and oh there was also the matter of the TPK.
Wait, Your Whole Party Died?
You see, we were still pretty low-level, and had had a few close calls before. This particular incident led south because of a few things. Some luck, some communication issues, and, er, one other thing.
Celeste didn’t know any damaging cantrips.
My first D&D character sheet
I had witch bolt, I had chromatic orb, but once my spell slots were gone, my damage option was a… well, a quarterstaff. So, a stick.
Here’s what happened:
One: we enter the arena. All of us see a black puddle. Some of us see a gelatinous cube behind it. That “some” did not include me.
Two: I throw spells at the black ooze. The rogue and the ranger go around towards the cube, but I had missed that there was another enemy and that it was far away.
Three: The cube eats the ranger. The rogue pulls out the ranger, but then gets sucked in. The rogue goes unconscious. The black puddle is gone, but I’m out of spell slots.
Four: The ranger and rogue both go down. As the cube begins digesting the rogue, I try to hit it with my staff, with predictable results.
Five: The sorcerer goes down! The end.
Well, not the end, we were raised by an NPC we had interacted with prior. The campaign fizzled out a few sessions later. I still have the character sheet, though!
By that time, I was eager to keep playing. I had gotten my hands on all three of the main source books, had read them each cover-to-cover, and was drafting my own campaign once I got back to college from summer break.
The Adventure Continues
As for how I got here from there, well—
I start the campaign with a combination of our roommates. It was great to introduce more people to the game, and the campaign turned out pretty fun! Not perfect, of course, but we had some good moments, though again it fell victim to scheduling conflicts.
The semester after I began my campaign, a discussion about evil-aligned player characters leads to my husband starting his two-party campaign. Specifically, I asserted that an evil party wouldn’t last long enough and that they would inevitably fall to internal fighting or external consequences. (So far, the evil squad has proven me wrong—so far!) I joined the good squad with my elf bard, Finnith. Along the way, my husband and I participated in a number of one-off sessions and tragically fizzled campaigns.
And here we are! I love talking Dungeons & Dragons and learning how to improve, both as a player and as a Dungeon Master. Key to my introduction to the hobby were 5th Edition’s streamlined design and actual-play session videos. Before I even looked at a Player’s Handbook, I had learned what a session of D&D would look like. I had learned what possibilities lay in the hands of the dice and the players—the potential in the combination of creativity and fortune.
I’m excited to keep playing, and excited to have a Curse of Strahd campaign starting, too!
Leave a Reply