September 21, 2024: Newbie Quest: Adventure Prep For First-Timers

Despite playing RPGs since 1976 and writing for the industry since 1980, I've never managed to get family members to go on a tabletop adventure. That changed in mid-July, when a trip to a WiFi-less vacation cabin provided an opportunity to run a game for my sister, my brother-in-law, and my two 20-something nieces. It was a likely group. My sister and her husband loved the D&D movie, GOT, and LOTR, and my older niece the same . . . plus she's into anime, is loving the wonderfully daft RPG comedy Delicious in Dungeon, and plays Legend of Zelda while her dad kibitzes.

I ran my Quick Quest, Incident at the Golden Badger, using just the Melee rules. I hand-wrote notes on character creation on notepad sheets. Because Golden Badger has a few tough monsters, I gave them the option of choosing one enhancement:

• Add one point to an attribute.
• +1 damage and +1 to hit for one particular weapon type.
• Add a vaguely defined "acrobatics" talent ("climbing and jumping").
• Add a vaguely defined "thief" talent ("sneaking about and lockpicking").

They all had some trouble grasping how armor and shields affected both Dexterity & MA, but they got it right in the end.

I made a sketch of the exterior of the warehouse where most of the adventure occurs, plus freehand, non-hex maps of the warehouse's two stories. I made map props (barrels, crates, a table) out of Post-It notes, and mentally rehearsed the introduction and how to describe the NPCs and settings.

The adventure, played out over two nights, went well. Going Melee-only worked just fine. Combat was unexpectedly easy to teach.

The party made some great and unexpected use of the warehouse layout, shooting at one pair of "creeps" from an elevator platform and bottling them up in a stairwell after the creatures finally caught on that they were being shot at from above. One niece didn't seem super-engaged, but her character, a dwarf "tank" with a 2-handed sword, plate mail, and adjDX 6, saved the party by getting in the monsters' grills while archers wore them down. She managed to hit with her weapon just once, but that thoroughly demolished a "creep."

The Boss ("Boss") took out the Tank in two blows, but the sacrifice allowed a swordsman and two archer elves to kill it. I said the dwarf was unconcious and in need of urgent care instead of outright dead. The final monster was locked away, ending the adventure. I had fun describing the local Sorcerors' Guild doing clean-up.

They seemed happy to have finally tried an RPG. Might try again at Christmas. Maybe I'll add wizards and run "The Circus Job . . ."

-- Stefan Jones