Welcome to Newbieville! (For real this time, sorta!)
After two false starts, yesterday was going to be the first session of my Newbieville D&D campaign, in which I gather some folks who haven't had a chance to try D&D yet and introduce them to the game with a carefully-crafted homebrew adventure. Although not everyone showed, we did manage to have some actual gameplay, so that means it's officially time to start telling the story of Newbieville here on Find Familiar!
Last week (the second false start) exactly one person showed up, so I told her how the game worked and led her through making a character. Yesterday was a slight improvement, adding a second player to the list of "folks who have actually showed up so far." I explained the game, and helped her make a character as well. Thus, we currently have a two-member party:
Belwarum is a blue dragonborn. She's also a sorcerer, powered by the bloodline of a brass dragon. Prior to becoming an adventurer, she was a hermit.
Tika is a wood elf. She's a rogue, whose preferred type of fighting is dual-wielding shortswords. Prior to becoming an adventurer, she was an outlander.
Now, the premise of this campaign is that the PCs are rookies who have only just recently decided to take up a career of adventuring. Having learned of the recent founding of a new village along a river at the edge of a forest, they have arrived there hoping that it would be a good launching point for their new careers.
Our two heroes both wander in from the wilderness (after all, hermit and outlander) one evening in late summer. They see several freshly-built structures, a few half-finished buildings, and lots of plain canvas tents; it seems this village isn't even finished being built yet. They recognize each other as not being locals, and after brief introductions decide that their interests align and they'll check out the town together. Being around dinnertime, they head to the apparent tavern for food and information.
Belwarum and Tika find a corner table together, order some food, and ask the man busing tables—a gray-skinned tiefling who calls himself "Smokey" and identifies the tavern as the "Smokey River Inn"—about the town. They learn that a few buildings are up and running already, and some businesses (such as a blacksmith and herbalist) are expected to open in the next few days. Smokey tells them that if they're looking for adventuring work, they could try heading to the municipal building in the morning to ask the mayor if there are any such jobs that need doing.
As they eat, Belwarum and Tika observe their fellow patrons: an elvish woman is running the bar, two children roughly 10 years old carry dirty dishes from tables in a "we're totally helping Daddy" sort of way, and a substantial portion of the customers seem to be lumberjacks and carpenters. The pair contemplates getting a room for the night, but decide it's cheaper to just sleep on the ground outside, which is what they're both used to anyway. They get a few odd looks from loggers and carpenters heading back to their tents for the night, but nobody bothers them.
In the morning, the new friends head to the municipal building to talk to the mayor, but instead encounter Belva, a human woman, occupying a front desk. Belva tells them that indeed, there is a job request on the books: there's a ruined stone building on the outskirts of town, a few minutes' walk into the woods on the far side of the river. A wizard has purchased it with the intent of moving in, and is offering 250gp to have adventurers clear it of any predators or other hazards so that it will be safe for a renovation crew to do their work. The pair takes the job, and sets out immediately.
They find the ruin, which appears to be a square-shaped stone building with a round tower rising from the back corner and a fenced-off area extending from one side. They circle the area just to be safe, and notice that the back side of the tower has a large hole near the top, from which large spiderwebs extend out of the tower and into the surrounding trees. They also get a better look at the fenced-in area, which looks to have perhaps been a garden in the past but is now overgrown with all manner of plants and fungi.
Belwarum recognizes some of these plants as dangerous Violet Fungi, which she knows to be carnivorous and mobile (though slow). I had hoped that they would have the idea of staying a good distance away and peppering the fungi with ranged attacks for a very one-sided fight, but alas, they did not. However, they did at least try to carefully engage just one at a time so as not to be overwhelmed. They managed to defeat all the VFs, but Tika was badly injured and nearly died on the ground.
Unable to wake her, Belwarum waited an hour for Tika to regain consciousness, then they took their very first "short rest" and learned how Hit Dice work. Feeling refreshed, they circled around from the garden to the front door to reveal an empty chamber, then passed through another door to discover what appeared to be a kitchen in which giant rats had made a nest. One giant rat was present, and bit Belwarum badly before Tika sliced it up expertly.
With Belwarum down to 2 HP and them having just learned about resting, they went back outside for another breather, then moved confidently back into the kitchen, only to see that two more rats had returned to the nest. Tika once again fought expertly, but Belwarum was bitten again. After some discussion, Belwarum decided to head back to town and take the rest of the day off (after all, her only Hit Die had been spent), but Tika was feeling healthy and bold and wanted to check out the cellar before calling it a day.
The cellar was a long rectangle, and Tika could see two old skeletons slumped against the wall at the far end. I hoped she would decide this was a bad idea and leave, but she decided to investigate. When she got about halfway to the skeletons, they arose and brandished weapons. She won initiative, and I hoped she would run away, but instead she attacked. (To her credit, she did deduce all on her own that bludgeoning should be more effective than other attacks.) It went as poorly as one might expect, and she was immediately incapacitated.
So now, with the only nearby PC unconscious, I had a decision to make. Since I had already established that basic undead simply want to kill the living, I decided that they would trek out in search of more victims. Thus, Tika was left to make some death saves. Sadly, her first was a natural 1, counting as two failures, so after a success and another failure, she was dead. Then I had a decision to make.
You see, this was her first time playing, and had spent less time playing than she had spent making the character in the first place. Furthermore, since dying would just mean making a new character, we'd have to do one of two things: go through that whole process again, likely taking the rest of our session; or just replace Tika with an identical character (since the deceased was so fresh as to have not changed from character creation yet). With that in mind, I asked her to keep making death saves. The next two were successes. I told her that, because of this specific situation, we would pretend that the natural 1 earlier only counted as one failure instead of two, and she therefore stabilized. I explained this all explicitly so that we could all be on the same page. Problem solved.
Meanwhile, Belwarum had only just arrived in town and entered the tavern when she heard screams outside. Investigating, she saw two skeletons entering town. (After all, the fight with Tika took mere seconds, so they probably exited the cellar to see Belwarum in the distance and followed her back to town!) Despite having only 2 HP, Belwarum starts firing off Fire Bolt spells.
Side note: Both players seem to have a preference for attacking whichever enemy has the LEAST damage at any given point. Need to find a way to teach them otherwise. Feel free to comment with ideas!
A local civilian is stabbed as the skeletons make their way forward. With both skeletons heavily injured, they reach Belwarum, and she falls. Okay, now what?
Thanks to my having developed the town in advance, I can handle this! Yay! First, I know that there are at least a couple of NPCs who would own bows or crossbows, so I rolled attack rolls for civilians firing from the safety of their windows. Interestingly, I rolled a 16 and a 20, so those skeletons got smoked pretty fast. Thus, I had Belwarum roll a couple of rounds worth of death saves, but then told her that she suddenly woke up with full hit points.
She discovered that the local priest, a human man named Wodan (yay prep!) had rushed out as soon as the coast was clear (which was, due to those high NPC attack rolls, very quickly) and cast Cure Wounds on Belwarum (and Healing Word on the fallen civilian), thus preventing any casualties. Belwarum asked if anyone had seen Tika, and when the answer was no, she headed back to the ruin.
Having known that the cellar was where Tika was headed, Belwarum entered, found her body, and carried her back to town (hooray for +2 STR from being a dragonborn!) where Wodan was happy to heal her as well. He further informed them that he normally charges for spellcasting services, but as thanks for Belwarum springing into action to protect everyone, this one was on the house. Finally, Wodan suggested they take the rest of the day off, which they thought was a fantastic idea.
And last but not least, I taught them about XP: each character in this campaign begins with 100 XP, and because the two of them managed to accomplish so much, they ended up gaining 350 XP each. With their XP totals now at 450, that means they reached 2nd level, so I got to finish the session by walking them through the leveling process. Now when others join the game, we'll have a couple of slightly more experienced PCs who know a bit about what's going on and can sort of help the others along. That sounds fantastic to me!
That said, there's still the issue that only two people showed up. Two others (one of whom was going to bring her son, bringing the total number of players to five) didn't show up, and in fact ghosted me entirely. So I guess I'll have to deal with that somehow. I'm thinking I'll ask them both whether they're still interested in the game, and mention that if not, I need to know it so I can let someone else have their spots. I feel bad doing that, but I also can't just run a game for only two people while knowing that dozens more had wanted to play. This is the un-fun part of running a game. Even so, the silver lining is that the two-player session was cozy and personal, allowing me to afford plenty of attention to a pair of newbies who seemed like they had lots of fun!
Remember: Part of the point of Newbieville is to open the doors to folks who have faced barriers in the past, which includes making sure I don't require monetary investment from them. If you'd like to help cover the cost of the books and dice that I'm providing, you can do so HERE.
That's all for today. Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
Last week (the second false start) exactly one person showed up, so I told her how the game worked and led her through making a character. Yesterday was a slight improvement, adding a second player to the list of "folks who have actually showed up so far." I explained the game, and helped her make a character as well. Thus, we currently have a two-member party:
Belwarum is a blue dragonborn. She's also a sorcerer, powered by the bloodline of a brass dragon. Prior to becoming an adventurer, she was a hermit.
Tika is a wood elf. She's a rogue, whose preferred type of fighting is dual-wielding shortswords. Prior to becoming an adventurer, she was an outlander.
Now, the premise of this campaign is that the PCs are rookies who have only just recently decided to take up a career of adventuring. Having learned of the recent founding of a new village along a river at the edge of a forest, they have arrived there hoping that it would be a good launching point for their new careers.
Our two heroes both wander in from the wilderness (after all, hermit and outlander) one evening in late summer. They see several freshly-built structures, a few half-finished buildings, and lots of plain canvas tents; it seems this village isn't even finished being built yet. They recognize each other as not being locals, and after brief introductions decide that their interests align and they'll check out the town together. Being around dinnertime, they head to the apparent tavern for food and information.
Belwarum and Tika find a corner table together, order some food, and ask the man busing tables—a gray-skinned tiefling who calls himself "Smokey" and identifies the tavern as the "Smokey River Inn"—about the town. They learn that a few buildings are up and running already, and some businesses (such as a blacksmith and herbalist) are expected to open in the next few days. Smokey tells them that if they're looking for adventuring work, they could try heading to the municipal building in the morning to ask the mayor if there are any such jobs that need doing.
As they eat, Belwarum and Tika observe their fellow patrons: an elvish woman is running the bar, two children roughly 10 years old carry dirty dishes from tables in a "we're totally helping Daddy" sort of way, and a substantial portion of the customers seem to be lumberjacks and carpenters. The pair contemplates getting a room for the night, but decide it's cheaper to just sleep on the ground outside, which is what they're both used to anyway. They get a few odd looks from loggers and carpenters heading back to their tents for the night, but nobody bothers them.
In the morning, the new friends head to the municipal building to talk to the mayor, but instead encounter Belva, a human woman, occupying a front desk. Belva tells them that indeed, there is a job request on the books: there's a ruined stone building on the outskirts of town, a few minutes' walk into the woods on the far side of the river. A wizard has purchased it with the intent of moving in, and is offering 250gp to have adventurers clear it of any predators or other hazards so that it will be safe for a renovation crew to do their work. The pair takes the job, and sets out immediately.
They find the ruin, which appears to be a square-shaped stone building with a round tower rising from the back corner and a fenced-off area extending from one side. They circle the area just to be safe, and notice that the back side of the tower has a large hole near the top, from which large spiderwebs extend out of the tower and into the surrounding trees. They also get a better look at the fenced-in area, which looks to have perhaps been a garden in the past but is now overgrown with all manner of plants and fungi.
Belwarum recognizes some of these plants as dangerous Violet Fungi, which she knows to be carnivorous and mobile (though slow). I had hoped that they would have the idea of staying a good distance away and peppering the fungi with ranged attacks for a very one-sided fight, but alas, they did not. However, they did at least try to carefully engage just one at a time so as not to be overwhelmed. They managed to defeat all the VFs, but Tika was badly injured and nearly died on the ground.
Unable to wake her, Belwarum waited an hour for Tika to regain consciousness, then they took their very first "short rest" and learned how Hit Dice work. Feeling refreshed, they circled around from the garden to the front door to reveal an empty chamber, then passed through another door to discover what appeared to be a kitchen in which giant rats had made a nest. One giant rat was present, and bit Belwarum badly before Tika sliced it up expertly.
With Belwarum down to 2 HP and them having just learned about resting, they went back outside for another breather, then moved confidently back into the kitchen, only to see that two more rats had returned to the nest. Tika once again fought expertly, but Belwarum was bitten again. After some discussion, Belwarum decided to head back to town and take the rest of the day off (after all, her only Hit Die had been spent), but Tika was feeling healthy and bold and wanted to check out the cellar before calling it a day.
The cellar was a long rectangle, and Tika could see two old skeletons slumped against the wall at the far end. I hoped she would decide this was a bad idea and leave, but she decided to investigate. When she got about halfway to the skeletons, they arose and brandished weapons. She won initiative, and I hoped she would run away, but instead she attacked. (To her credit, she did deduce all on her own that bludgeoning should be more effective than other attacks.) It went as poorly as one might expect, and she was immediately incapacitated.
So now, with the only nearby PC unconscious, I had a decision to make. Since I had already established that basic undead simply want to kill the living, I decided that they would trek out in search of more victims. Thus, Tika was left to make some death saves. Sadly, her first was a natural 1, counting as two failures, so after a success and another failure, she was dead. Then I had a decision to make.
You see, this was her first time playing, and had spent less time playing than she had spent making the character in the first place. Furthermore, since dying would just mean making a new character, we'd have to do one of two things: go through that whole process again, likely taking the rest of our session; or just replace Tika with an identical character (since the deceased was so fresh as to have not changed from character creation yet). With that in mind, I asked her to keep making death saves. The next two were successes. I told her that, because of this specific situation, we would pretend that the natural 1 earlier only counted as one failure instead of two, and she therefore stabilized. I explained this all explicitly so that we could all be on the same page. Problem solved.
Meanwhile, Belwarum had only just arrived in town and entered the tavern when she heard screams outside. Investigating, she saw two skeletons entering town. (After all, the fight with Tika took mere seconds, so they probably exited the cellar to see Belwarum in the distance and followed her back to town!) Despite having only 2 HP, Belwarum starts firing off Fire Bolt spells.
Side note: Both players seem to have a preference for attacking whichever enemy has the LEAST damage at any given point. Need to find a way to teach them otherwise. Feel free to comment with ideas!
A local civilian is stabbed as the skeletons make their way forward. With both skeletons heavily injured, they reach Belwarum, and she falls. Okay, now what?
Thanks to my having developed the town in advance, I can handle this! Yay! First, I know that there are at least a couple of NPCs who would own bows or crossbows, so I rolled attack rolls for civilians firing from the safety of their windows. Interestingly, I rolled a 16 and a 20, so those skeletons got smoked pretty fast. Thus, I had Belwarum roll a couple of rounds worth of death saves, but then told her that she suddenly woke up with full hit points.
She discovered that the local priest, a human man named Wodan (yay prep!) had rushed out as soon as the coast was clear (which was, due to those high NPC attack rolls, very quickly) and cast Cure Wounds on Belwarum (and Healing Word on the fallen civilian), thus preventing any casualties. Belwarum asked if anyone had seen Tika, and when the answer was no, she headed back to the ruin.
Having known that the cellar was where Tika was headed, Belwarum entered, found her body, and carried her back to town (hooray for +2 STR from being a dragonborn!) where Wodan was happy to heal her as well. He further informed them that he normally charges for spellcasting services, but as thanks for Belwarum springing into action to protect everyone, this one was on the house. Finally, Wodan suggested they take the rest of the day off, which they thought was a fantastic idea.
And last but not least, I taught them about XP: each character in this campaign begins with 100 XP, and because the two of them managed to accomplish so much, they ended up gaining 350 XP each. With their XP totals now at 450, that means they reached 2nd level, so I got to finish the session by walking them through the leveling process. Now when others join the game, we'll have a couple of slightly more experienced PCs who know a bit about what's going on and can sort of help the others along. That sounds fantastic to me!
That said, there's still the issue that only two people showed up. Two others (one of whom was going to bring her son, bringing the total number of players to five) didn't show up, and in fact ghosted me entirely. So I guess I'll have to deal with that somehow. I'm thinking I'll ask them both whether they're still interested in the game, and mention that if not, I need to know it so I can let someone else have their spots. I feel bad doing that, but I also can't just run a game for only two people while knowing that dozens more had wanted to play. This is the un-fun part of running a game. Even so, the silver lining is that the two-player session was cozy and personal, allowing me to afford plenty of attention to a pair of newbies who seemed like they had lots of fun!
Remember: Part of the point of Newbieville is to open the doors to folks who have faced barriers in the past, which includes making sure I don't require monetary investment from them. If you'd like to help cover the cost of the books and dice that I'm providing, you can do so HERE.
That's all for today. Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
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