Miniatures…

Miniatures are great. I currently don’t use them much as I play Warhammer 40k and get my miniatures fix from actual miniatures games and don’t feel the need to always include them in the RPGs that I play.

I remember picking up the unpainted pewter miniatures and being enthralled by them. Instantly going on adventures in my head with them. But this time I was to play in a game that used miniatures. A game that my cousin DMed that brought both of his gaming groups together.

This was a return of a familiar name, Barbos Hawkscar, but not as my character. This time as a Wizard PC played by one of my cousin’s friends. I am just glad that such an awesome sounding name got to live on as another character. I wonder if he did the same thing as I can choose it from the list because it sounded vaguely heroic. There were at least 3 other of my cousin’s friends. I don’t remember what characters they all played. This session was memorable for another reason.

A green blanket covering boxes and towers transforming the coffee table into a valley system. Miniature trees, pillboxes, and a CD rack were converted into a stone shire adorned the center of the valley as well as a large rock with moss on the bottom.

Searching and moving boulders lead to actually hidden treasure. Tiny Lego gems were hidden in the scenery’s mossy base.

Battling Goblins and orcs on the edge of a ruined cliff castle (CD rack). I found a magic sword inside the shire that was actually a sarcophagus, that the fighter claimed as his since I was an archer thief and didn’t have the proficiency.

After this, we climbed a mountain cliff and entered a magic circle leading to a mystical tower surrounded by liquid metal (tin foil).

After we set about and I threw a dagger in the mysterious liquid metal. I decided to attempt to climb down. I had forgotten I had rope to use, and promptly fell into the liquid metal died…

Just like that, my first character death. I was saddened but young and only used to dying in video games. The next time I played I brought a new goblin with the same name into play. I did this several times, most of them died too. It was a blast.

The Wait until the next game…

The wait between games was too much for me to bare so I hounded by cousin to schedule the next game. My cousin was working on it but not wanting to be bothered as much and to entertain me handed me the D&D Basic Player’s Handbook revised by Frank Mentzer published in 1983. This book constituted the majority of play in my first few years in the form of a solo adventure, but was usually eclipsed by the much more exciting time when my cousin DMed.

post

I must of played through the solo adventure dozens of times. Probably in the high 20s or 30s. It starts off as a series of scripted encounters designed to be an introduction to the terms and definitions of the game and the second part becomes a choose your own adventure.

Having played that I must of made dozens of characters from the third section which had rules on character creation. I came up with the idea of testing them in the choose your own adventure section. I think for me only classes that survived were the fighter, cleric and dwarf. The halfling, thief and magic-user all perished having too few hitpoints (HP).

I have so many fond memories just playing by myself, dreaming of playing with a larger group one day. I didn’t have to wait that long but playing through the solo adventure was what I did in between the longish waiting times to sate my craving for wonder, battle, and quest!

My First Game

It was one and half years after we made our first characters. My cousin had secretly prepared pre-mades and a small adventure.

I remember the details of my first game pretty well. My two brother played, as well as my brother’s friend. With them as my party and myself we made up the players of this rag tag group ready to game. My cousin was the DM and picked from a cadre of potential adventurers. We were playing 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

There was a exiled prince paladin, a surely dwarven adventurer, a half-elven assassin, a cyclops with the intelligence of a baby, and myself, a goblin archer. There might have been a few other characters but they didn’t become important in anyway. I choose the goblin archer because he used a bow. My brother, who was around the same age as me choose the dwarf because of his last name which was, Dragonsbane. His friend choose to be an exiled prince. My eldest brother choose to be a mysterious half-elf assassin, know only as Shadow. My cousin ended up playing the few others as a group as NPCs for the first session.

My cousin had filled in the name on the character sheet as Gromil Hazling the Far Seeing. He was a minor thieves guild member in a major city. I started to develop my character more. He was the self-styled best archer in the land with a short bow and greatest thief ever.

The game opened with only me in a gladiator ring in a jester’s suit. The crowd were handed rocks and to hit the goblin as a pre-show in order to stir up the blood thirstiness of the crowd. After dodging a few, a child hit me squarely in the jaw. I picked up my dice. My goblin picked up the stone and threw it…roll…

*CRITICAL*

The child fell limply as I knocked out him out with a swift powerful throw. The crowd roared and began raining down rocks. I fell into the fetal position and embraced the sweet unconsciousness knowing that I did a really funny thing. I knew then that this was the game for me.

The next scene was me awakening chained to a bench with all the PCs and available NPCs. Everyone except the assassin. We talked about how we got caught and what crimes we committed. When it was my turn I told them I was a thief and got caught. I tried getting to know the cyclops but…

*BANG*

Lights out again. Never be snide to a cyclops.

We were being equipped with padded armor and wooden swords for a mock battle. The doors opened and we went out and dispersed into the sandy arena. We took a few seconds and were determining if we should fight each other or try and escape. I went to inspect one of the many doors along the walls. I was locked with a large keyhole.

A large chariot opened and out rushed a few people with actual steel weapons. It became a desperate battle to hide behind the cyclops before he overturned a chariot and a wrestling match to grab the weapons and put these false gladiators to the sword.

I grabbed a dagger and made my way to the locked door with a big key. I argued that since the lock was large and i was small. I should be able to use the dagger to pick the lock. My DM decided that should be possible but hard. I grabbed the percent dice and made the near impossible possible.

We made a break through the streets and the DM requested a break.

After we came back we were apprehended by a wizard with a sleep spell. In a much worse prison this time. Slaves are not given two chances to escape. This is when the assassin joined the game. He was on a stealth mission to break us all out. Its during the intermittent scenes of stealth and sneak attacks, the rest of the party interacted with the jail cells. I simply talked to the cyclops and sort of made friends by saying that he was the strongest and smartest around.

Eventually we were rescued but the cyclops wouldn’t join us. He wanted his ‘wand’. Not knowing what that was we searched for our stuff and when saying we will get his wand, he joined us. Eventually we found our starting gear in chests, the only gear the cyclops had was a 6 ft tree trunk that we latter found out he threw at people and he thought could cast spell, not knowing it was just his raw strength making people fly and explode.

Escaping into the streets and disappearing was the conclusion on my 1st game of Dungeons and Dragons. This was surely a great kick-off to a great game… nope. We always just started a new campaign but just kept these characters. All of them great starts, but no follow through usually through PC getting us into too great of trouble. I think it was because we were my cousin’s alternate group. So months in between session would lapse. Regardless, I was hooked. I loved this character. I loved this game and I couldn’t wait to play more.

Introduction…

My introduction to tabletop gaming happened when I went out to my uncles for the summer. I, a child of 8, was responsible for the SNES and when I got there; I put my backpack on the ground a little too hard. When I tried plugging in the console to the television, nothing happened it was dead.

After I fell into a pit of despair and sulking, that only a child of 8 can manage, my older cousin resolved himself to occupy my brother and I, by introducing us to the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

The excitement of picking up the clear polyhedra, holding them in my hand, while my cousin rattled off the different uses for the dice.

I made an elf character strong in the arm and rolled well on my starting gold. We never had time to play, but we were excited.

I don’t remember the words he said when describing what the game was about. I do remember the feelings evoked, of awesome adventure. That feeling never left, for the rest of my life. I yearned to go on epic quests.