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An old Roleplaying story
Many, many years ago, I ran a 1st edition D&D game. We're talking the mid-late 1980s here, so the whole "OMG Demon-infestation" stuff was going on, but hey, this was Australia. Even the son of the Baptist Minister was fine playing - his parents trusted him.
Speaking of which, he played a paladin, as he felt that was a good compromise between his beliefs and the game. (And to be fair, he played it well). We had a magic user, a druid and a thief. And being First Edition, after months of playing1, they were all only *just* on either 2nd or 3rd level.2. But that meant we didn't have a lot of grunt.
So I brought in a couple of non-player characters (NPCs) to help. Most prominent were Marvin and Grimslade. Grimslade was a meathead half-orc fighter with little brain, who was "run" by Marvin, a gnomish mage who sat on his shoulder and directed him. I'dstolen borrowed them completely from a game I'd been in 5 years previously.
As well, there was the cow herder. He was a farm boy the players had met up the mountain, who insisted on bringing his cow along for the adventure. He had plans of one day being a rich knight who roamed the countryside making his fortune by performing acts of valour. At the moment, though, he was a Level 1 fighter with a battered old sword.
And, having played for so long, they wanted to kill a dragon.
After all, the game *is* called "Dungeons and Dragons", isn't it?
Trouble is, even the teensyiest, weensiest little dragon was way more powerful than our raggle-taggle bunch of brave adventurers, which is why I'd boosted the group. Even so, it wasn't very powerful. But we were hoping for the best.
Anyway, they had heard of the dragon up in the hills, and climbed up to within a half-day's walk of where the dragon was rumoured to be living. Then they decided that it would be better to lure the dragon down to them rather than get trapped in its lair. But how to lure a dragon? The farm boy wouldn't let them use the cow. So they decided to use a virgin. And then the discussions began about "who was a virgin?"
The paladin, obviously. But he was their prime fighter and they didn't want to lose him.
Forget Marvin and Grimslade. Those two had been adventuring long enough that they probably had a tavern wench in every town.
"The mage?" "Nope. I have a boyfriend back home."
"The druid?" "Trees. They're not just for hugging."
"The rogue?" "Seriously? Have you any idea which business I left to come adventuring? My girls would never forgive me if I didn't come back."
"The cow?" "No, the farm boy already said 'no'."
"The farm boy?" They all look at me, then shake their heads. "Nah. Him and the cow..."
At which point the giggling explodes, and while they're expounding upon the theme, the dragon swooped over them...3
Typical game, really.
1. The amount of experience points (XP) granted for each encounter was tiny. I'm pretty sure that it was based on the idea of a bunch of students playing for hours every night over a couple of years, thus making sure the game didn't get too powerful too fast. Trouble is, if you're a bunch of friends who all work and who only meet once every couple of weeks...
2. Some of you will remember that you needed ridiculous numbers of XP to go up the levels in 1st edition, and it was different for each class. So you could have a party with a 4th level thief and a 2nd level magic user, both with the same number of XP.
3. Oh? So you want to know what happened next? Turned out the dragon was the familiar of an old mage who had died many, many years ago, and it was just bringing back "gifts" for the master, not understanding why the master didn't respond like he used to. So the party actually talked it into going back to its people and leaving the local farms alone.
Speaking of which, he played a paladin, as he felt that was a good compromise between his beliefs and the game. (And to be fair, he played it well). We had a magic user, a druid and a thief. And being First Edition, after months of playing1, they were all only *just* on either 2nd or 3rd level.2. But that meant we didn't have a lot of grunt.
So I brought in a couple of non-player characters (NPCs) to help. Most prominent were Marvin and Grimslade. Grimslade was a meathead half-orc fighter with little brain, who was "run" by Marvin, a gnomish mage who sat on his shoulder and directed him. I'd
As well, there was the cow herder. He was a farm boy the players had met up the mountain, who insisted on bringing his cow along for the adventure. He had plans of one day being a rich knight who roamed the countryside making his fortune by performing acts of valour. At the moment, though, he was a Level 1 fighter with a battered old sword.
And, having played for so long, they wanted to kill a dragon.
After all, the game *is* called "Dungeons and Dragons", isn't it?
Trouble is, even the teensyiest, weensiest little dragon was way more powerful than our raggle-taggle bunch of brave adventurers, which is why I'd boosted the group. Even so, it wasn't very powerful. But we were hoping for the best.
Anyway, they had heard of the dragon up in the hills, and climbed up to within a half-day's walk of where the dragon was rumoured to be living. Then they decided that it would be better to lure the dragon down to them rather than get trapped in its lair. But how to lure a dragon? The farm boy wouldn't let them use the cow. So they decided to use a virgin. And then the discussions began about "who was a virgin?"
The paladin, obviously. But he was their prime fighter and they didn't want to lose him.
Forget Marvin and Grimslade. Those two had been adventuring long enough that they probably had a tavern wench in every town.
"The mage?" "Nope. I have a boyfriend back home."
"The druid?" "Trees. They're not just for hugging."
"The rogue?" "Seriously? Have you any idea which business I left to come adventuring? My girls would never forgive me if I didn't come back."
"The cow?" "No, the farm boy already said 'no'."
"The farm boy?" They all look at me, then shake their heads. "Nah. Him and the cow..."
At which point the giggling explodes, and while they're expounding upon the theme, the dragon swooped over them...3
Typical game, really.
1. The amount of experience points (XP) granted for each encounter was tiny. I'm pretty sure that it was based on the idea of a bunch of students playing for hours every night over a couple of years, thus making sure the game didn't get too powerful too fast. Trouble is, if you're a bunch of friends who all work and who only meet once every couple of weeks...
2. Some of you will remember that you needed ridiculous numbers of XP to go up the levels in 1st edition, and it was different for each class. So you could have a party with a 4th level thief and a 2nd level magic user, both with the same number of XP.
3. Oh? So you want to know what happened next? Turned out the dragon was the familiar of an old mage who had died many, many years ago, and it was just bringing back "gifts" for the master, not understanding why the master didn't respond like he used to. So the party actually talked it into going back to its people and leaving the local farms alone.
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Oh that's grand!
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I only played once - the year? 1982, I was a female ranger named Anastasia.
The game went for almost 30 hours with only a two hour nap before we all quit. There were about five of us and we never got very far.
For a game I knew I would love, all that time with not much reward burned me off of it.
I still think being a female ranger named Anastasia is pretty cool, though.
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It was but a hatchling, but still..
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And yeah, my character was of Good alignment, but being a Thief, Lawful Good was right out, she was Neutral Good, if I recall correctly. It probably would have been fun to play a Chaotic Good character, but it was really only that one very long campaign with that one character that I played.
The thing that made me quit wasn't the "ooooh demons!" thing -- though my brother-in-law was quite concerned and urged me to quit because of that. That wasn't what decided me, though. Not sure if I can explain it very well, but... role-playing is very immersive. More immersive than reading or writing, and more immersive than acting, because with acting, you're using someone else's words, while with role-playing, you are using your own words, as if you are acting and writing at the same time. And I didn't like that I was pretending (for the time I was playing) to be a person who lived in a world where pantheistic gods were real.
Which means I don't have problems with SF-based RPGs... but I never found as congenial a group to play with as the one I played AD&D with. Because I guess the stuff I liked best about it was the character stuff and the worldbuilding, not the going around and killing things. I suppose I am just a writer at heart.
Turned out the dragon was the familiar of an old mage who had died many, many years ago, and it was just bringing back "gifts" for the master, not understanding why the master didn't respond like he used to. So the party actually talked it into going back to its people and leaving the local farms alone.
Creative solution, yay!