I told you this was not going to become my campaign journal and so on, and I'll stick to that (I don't like those things, anyway; never found one that interested me to any degree, whatsoever), but I would be remiss not to tell you how things went:
As some of you who have experience with such things might expect, the player who loves video game RPGs started out a little wobbly, but soon got into it with gusto. Unfortunately, the player who had played a few times as a kid just couldn't seem to put himself behind him; he was clearly uneasy, probably for all the reasons most neophyte players are (there is no board, no clear-cut objective, etc.), and thoroughly uncomfortable trying to play in-character. He kept cracking jokes as a defense mechanism and nothing the two of us did to reassure him he was "safe" had any effect. But he only played the last few hours; we played all day.
Again, things started off slowly, but I had him hooked in no time! We were both flailing a bit at first, as I simply had too much to read before we played and had been reading all week, so I eventually gave up on it and decided to just "wing it." That works, of course, but I couldn't bring myself to do it for everything I hadn't had time to bone-up on, so there was the requisite poring through books - what would a proper D&D game be without that, though? The eager player and myself developed a rockin' little backdrop throughout the day, replete with a few snide enemies in the court, a fun cast of characters, and even a possible love interest.
Then I screwed it all up: we spent the better part of the day establishing his day-to-day life in and around the stronghold in which he lives, and I more or less coerced him to leave it and strike-out across the countryside with his erstwhile (but equally low-level) noble companion. In my defense, I'd planned on the pair coming across a small encounter which they would invariably survive (with or without a few bruises) which would earn them a few XP, get us familiar with combat procedure, and generally move things forward a bit. That's when the disruptive player appeared, though...
Honestly, I could have handled him, had I not already been tired. It was well into the evening by that point and we did the Play, Stop, Play, Stop thing (all you can do with a disruptive player) for a few hours before I basically gave-up. I woke up ready to go though, so that says something. I just hope the eager player did as well.
Anyway, we can say we played on "Worldwide D&D Day."
© C Harris Lynn, 2009
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