AD&D, here we go again — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

Philosophy and other Silliness

AD&D, here we go again

This page's ID: 29242

Edit Post

Who can edit a post?	The poster and administrators may edit a post. The poster can only edit it for a short while after the initial post.

Your User Name:
Your Password:
Login Options:	Remember Me On This Computer

Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	I'm feeling the need to talk about the DM and our history together. I started playing AD&D 2nd Edition at Michigan Tech. It was a blast. The DM was uber awesome. The stories were great and he had this way of manipulating the party. The best DM ever. Hands down. Then I went home and hooked up with one of my high school buds. The subject of RPG came up and I told him about it at MTU. He was all like, "You play?" And I was all like, "Yeah, been having a blast." And he was all like, "I know someone that just started, wanna meet?" And I was all like, "Sure". And he was all like, "Let's go right now." And I was all like, "Alright." So we went and I meet the party with their budding new DM. This was his second time running a session, but it seemed to be going well. He had had an interest and decided to buy the books and Undermountain and give it a go. A few minutes later, I was Denny the elven fighter and a part of the party. About two hours later, the bud that had brought me over bailed and left me. I ended up staying until the sun came up. They were all new - not just the DM. They were the basic fighters and thiefs. Since I had a few months of experience on them, I decided to mix it up with a chaos mage from the Tomb of Magic. A seriously crazy mage with a crowbar for a weapon. If it was frail, he would break it; if it was a book, he would take it. I basically introduced them to the magic side of D&D. Even did some nasty spell combinations, like Fist of Stone and Shocking Grasp. That can be some serious hand-to-hand damage for even a low-level mage. A few sessions later, they were getting the hang of things in Undermountain. Then a corner-stone encounter happened. We walked into a room and the DM went into this big thing describing the monsters that were about to attack us. These lumbering, rail-thin green things with nasty claws and teeth. He really went all-out describing them to put the horror into us. When he was done, I said, "If those are what I think they are, the party is dead." He challenged me with, "What do you think they are?" I wrote "troll" on a piece of paper and handed it to him. When he read it, he got this look on his face. It was classic. He said, "Nah, the party can take them." I said, "Okay. We'll see." So, we low-level pudges went into combat against four trolls. It was an absolute slaughter. The only one that came close to surviving was a priest that got lucky with a Flaming Sphere, but he got munched anyways. I was ever so slightly giggling to myself the whole time. Stop. Rewind. Do over. What did he learn? That there is more to a monster than just hit points. Sure, we could deal some damage, but the trolls could deal out more damage due to THac0, number of attacks, and damage dice. Not to mention regenerating. There is a reason a troll is wearth more xp than a 4HD ogre. The do over? We walk into the room, the priest immediately casts Flaming Sphere for cover, and we run. Several sessions later, there was another hall mark encounter. This one had to do with drow. Previously, mostly mindless monsters, but drow are intelligent. That is, they don't just wander looking for food. For the first time, we had to think about motive of our adversaries. That is, motive beyond basic survial. From that point on, the DM started layering in things. Small things at first, but they started getting more elaborate and involving. He gained his sense of looking at the bigger picture and how various characters fit together and interact. He can get particularly nasty when thief and assassin guilds are involved. And that's not to mention the ethos of various gods with those things as domains. We had to constantly ask questions. Why is the assassin guild constantly trying to plant a mole in our party? Why are they smuggling weapons to a bunch of kobolds? Why are the murders being pinned in a particular party member? Why is the militia of that militant city after the deck of cards? Who stole my boots? He's gottan damn good at it. He can even free-style several layers of intrigue with no preperation. I've seen it, and it's amazing. No matter what happens, he can pull a story out of his muscular buttocks. Even if he does make a mistake, he can make the mistake make sense. Loading...
Options:	Enable Slimies Enable Linkwords

« Backwards — Onwards »

Show Forum Drop Down Menu