Epic Default Productions

For those of you who have been reading our site from the beginning, I hope you have begun to realize that I am a geek and have been one my entire life (and if not, then you are a liar, sir! A liar and a cheat! *insert British accent here*). I just forgot that I was for a good portion of it. So I missed out on a lot of cool geeky things. N00b Diaries are stories on my new experiences in geek culture, in the hopes that it takes you back to the days where you were a n00b just like me.

This weekend was the beginning of my first quest. As a wood elf barbarian looking for my father, I stumbled upon a mother who was wrongly accused of murdering her son. Myself and three fellow adventurers set off to clear her name. Yes, that’s right: this was my first time playing Dungeons and Dragons.

ClickPicTony had been playing D&D for years (at least since college and likely before then), but he had never been a DM. So a few months ago, he figured he’d start his own game and asked me if I wanted to play. Now, most of the people I’ve met in recent years have told me of their quests and battles in this game, and it has intrigued me since PAX ’08. Prior to that, I really had no interest in playing the game. I figured it would be a boring three hours where I’d sit around, occasionally roll some sort of die, and generally feel like I’m wasting my time. Everything I had heard about it since PAX, though, led me to believe that it was far from the case.

So I agreed, though rather reluctantly. As I said, ClickPicTony had been playing for a good while, and the only other people I could think of within driving distance who would want to play were veterans as well. So I was afraid that I would be lost in all the rules, items, inconsistencies, and the like while they just flew though it and looked at me as if I was holding the whole game up.

Fortunately, I was not alone in this plight when the game finally started. Since it was Tony’s first time as a DM, he had to refer to one of the more experienced players for guidance in certain situations, and the cleric in our party was a rookie as well, so all in all it became a very balanced game.

Now, the week before, we’d had a meeting to get to know everyone and go over the rules and lay of the land. And I mean that literally; Tony had created a map of the entire land, with landmarks, capitals, and locations of forests, deserts, and other natural locations. The actual tract of land looked vaguely familiar to all of us. Turns out we were right. He had taken the shape of Australia, and rotated the eastern tip to the north by about 90 degrees. Almost immediately the dingo jokes started to fly. We started asking if we needed to speak in Australian accents, if our dogs could instead be dingos, and if it would ever be warranted to scream, “A Dingo ate my baby!” Needless to say, the DM was not amused.

So a week later (this past Sunday) we actually started the game. Our back stories were in, and we were placed in a little town, more specifically a tavern, as if we didn’t drink enough in this reality. Suddenly a woman burst through the doors, screaming, “Someone help me! A beast killed my son and they think I did it!” I’m paraphrasing of course, since it was Tony as the DM, the exact dialogue was a little more… poetic, in interest of keeping my room in the house we rent, and not having rocks fall on my character and kill him.

We soon found out that the beast in question was a wolf, and the references to the indigenous dog and small offspring flew again. Turns out that’s the exact reference he was going for.

Everyone played their character perfectly, some a little too perfect. The cleric of our group, also known as the other new guy, decided to play a chaotic neutral character. His choice of dialogue became very short and curt, because he felt it would work with his character. Unfortunately, seeing as how we had to investigate a supposed crime scene for clues (Jinkies!), it felt as if we were role playing with David Caruso in his CSI years. Fortunately, this same person made up for that slight, yet humorous, annoyance by providing the soundtrack to the two instances of combat we had. The music of choice: Final Fantasy VI (or III in the American series, as he was quick to clarify) and, committed to the joke so well, he actually played the Final Fantasy victory music when we won.

Here’s one part that kind of confused me about the experience, though. The first instance of combat I was third in the initiative roll (note: d20s apparently hate me). The setup was that the wolf ambushed one member of our party, five feet from me. The other two members were 15 to 30 feet away as this was going on. The one attacked by the wolf had initiative, got out from under it, and ran behind me so that he could heal. The second person with initiative (remember: 15 to 30 feet behind me) apparently ran up, cast “Color Spray” and, at least according to Tony’s rules, since the wolf was incapacitated for five turns, performed a coup de grâce to kill it. So, essentially, even though I was practically an arm’s length from the wolf, somehow this guy ran up behind me and killed it, practically before I could draw my weapon. How does that make sense?

*Editor’s note: You were just that lazy.*

Overall, D&D was a learning experience for me. I ended up finding out which stereotypes were false, and which ones veteran players wished were false. But all in all, I had a good time and look forward to this upcoming Sunday to continue searching for my father.

And yes, I stole my back story idea from Fallout 3. I can’t handle writing under pressure, alright?!

What are some of your n00b experiences that you can remember? Tell us in the comments, or in our forums