The new folks confessed to having played some D&D 3.5, but said that they had only played it very briefly -- it "didn't work out." So I walked them through Labyrinth Lord chargen, with much aid and assistance from Cid, Brandon, and Brian, the old hands. The whole group gelled well, a fact which was evident even from the chargen phase. The new players picked up on the rules very quickly and the experienced ones were quick to jump in and guide the newbies through the process. Thanks old hands!
This is the second "startup" LL game I have run in the past few weeks -- as I mentioned in passing here, I ran a short pickup game for a group of five utter RPG neophytes a week or two ago -- and I must say I am extremely impressed with how easy it is to roll up new Labyrinth Lord characters. The way we did it yesterday was:
- roll attributes, 3d6 in order, but with the option to swap two scores with each other. I made this latter accommodation so that players wanting to play a specific character type -- and I did have at least one of those, a delightful player named Rigo who wanted to play a thief or assassin -- could do so.
- choose class.
- determine saving throws and hit points -- I went with maximum hp at first level.
- roll starting gold and buy equipment.
- casters determine spells.
And that's it! Within fifteen or twenty minutes, we were done with chargen and ready to play!
The group -- Lord Elric (Ftr, played by Brandon), Crimnox the Sorcerer (MU, Matt), Don Ximen Fernandez (Bard, Cid)*, Lucius (Halfling Thief, Rigo)**, Jarl Scuttlebeard (Dwf, Brian), and an unnamed cleric (Andrew) -- started in the underground city of Cynidicea, hanging around in a pub called The Cynidicean. A wealthy landowner and mushroom farmer named Sir Roger approached the party for help eradicating a horde of vicious troglodytes that had been terrorizing him and his neighbors of late. The party agreed, and even haggled with Sir Roger to pay them a fee per trog killed, on top of the basic 1100gp reward he was offering.
After Don Ximen hired a porter named Courtney and bought a couple of war dogs from a local breeder, the PCs set off around the underground lake to the far (west) side, stopping once along the way at a rat rancher's place in order to purchase a huge rat. The rancher looked at them funny when he heard they did not want their rat butchered for eating, but sold it to them anyway. Lord Elric led the rat around on an improvised leash, the plan being to use the rat as bait to lure out the trogs into an ambush.
But soon, after a brief encounter with a great albino gorilla that Lucius dispatched with a tossed flaming oil flask, the trogs ambushed them instead. Atop a high, mucky plain, the group split up, Don Ximen, Jarl, and Courtney the standard bearer marching straight at the trog party, while Elric, Crimnox, Lucius, and the unnamed cleric crept sneakily around to the south to flank the trogs' position. The scheme worked; the PCs prevailed despite losing Lucius during the ensuing battle.
After looting the trogs' rather sizeable treasure cache and mounting the four dead trogs on poles and stalagmites, the party returned to the city, to spend some of their loot, dig around for information about the trog warrens, and to return Lucius' body to the local thieves' guild. There they met Lucius' replacement, an as-yet-unnamed assassin, to be played by Rigo at our next session in a couple of weeks.
Please also see Cid's really terrific in-character session report.
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* Cid, whose love of Bards is well-known, is playtesting a new Bard Class for Labyrinth Lord of his own design. I like the look of it a lot and hope he will eventually make it available on his own site.
** Lucius was classed as a Thief because Rigo wanted access to the thieving skills; but he also wanted to be a halfling, which (of course) I permitted though we made no technical changes to the PC on that basis.
Glad to hear you had a good crowd! Great perseverance!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that it went well!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Carter, for running a fun game!
ReplyDeleteI think the lack of success of the last go-round might have been related to the season -- school was in session and it was cold and miserable out, which makes people less inclined to get out and try new things. I hope this attempt holds together because I agree, it was a solid group.
Just a little nitpick -- my character would be addressed as "Don Ximen" or "Don de la Vega," rather than "Don Fernandez." Fernandez is his patronymic, it's kinda just in there for flavor ;-)
Ah, thanks for the correction. . . actually in my handwritten notes I had you down as "Don Jiminez," which must have been how I heard "Don Ximen" on the day. Will update post forthwith.
DeleteAgreed that the day and group was fun.