I’ve been reading online how the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons simplifies things and has dumbed itself down in order to sell out to the video crowd. That’s us. And I’ve been looking over the Player’s Handbook and the Keep on the Shadowfell published adventure for a week or two now and feel pretty comfortable with everything that’s going on. And then we sat down and tried to play.

Dungeons & Dragons raped my mind. Beyond the awkwardness of setting up those who had yet to make characters and giving them a crash course in general rules, the actual battle encounter we ran through was a catastrophe. None of the player characters really had a grasp of what their powers did or what they were allowed to do, but that was nothing compared to the Dungeon Master who was totally unprepared. Me. I thought I was ready, but I sure wasn’t.

First thing to happen once the battle begun was to place monsters on the board. The miniatures we go for free were of no relation to the monsters they were to represent, and figures that were meant to represent the same creature were different so you couldn’t even tell that red mage like piece was a minion just the same as the green orc piece. And then we had to roll to figure out the order of turns, and that’s when I realized that I had no idea how to keep track of the nine characters and whose turn it was, and with those vague pieces on the board being moved around, after a round or two, I didn’t even know which piece represented what and who had how many hit points left. I was losing it, and I hadn’t even introduced the second wave of monsters yet.

With all my attention focusing on just trying and keeping things moving, I had no capacity for having the monsters follow their role playing tactics. The Dragonshields were supposed to charge the toughest looking player and try to flank it, but I wasn’t ready to figure out exactly how a charge or flanking works, even though somewhere inside I knew how. In fact, no real role playing really took place at all, it was just a struggle with mechanics, which failed pretty miserably.

Halfway through the battle I realized certain properties of the monsters had been ignored, and opportunity actions and other elements had been left out completely. Our battle was more or less every character moving once, and then just battling each turn, when it should have had people moving around the board, characters taking advantage of monsters letting their guard down, and using the terrain to their advantage.

The battle raged for close to two hours I believe, when it should have lasted no more than ten minutes I imagine, but I feel like I learned a lot about what I need to do to be more ready next time. Most importantly I a better way of representing people on the board, and of tracking their stats and turn order, with that out of the way, I believe the more entertaining things can take center stage. I’ve already spent some time preparing my side for the next battle, if the players just prepare their characters and have their powers understood and written out some way, I think we will do much better.

Despite everything, I still had fun, even if it was fun plagued by horrible agitation and confusion. I was even excited when the players turned the tide of a losing battle and finished off the monsters. I’ll be ready the next time Colin tells the table that his level 1 Paladin, Guy Jakobs, swings his mighty grand axe against my Wyrmpriest.

In case you were wondering, he misses; Colin seems to be a pretty awful roller when it comes to twenty sided dice.

Stay tuned for Thurs. when I discuss E3 news. There, see Colin, I already committed to a post for Thurs. As Bender would say, “I’m back baby!”

Take a stand!

1. Adam, king of super long posts.

   — Misty · Jul 17, 11:05 AM · #

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