Jadeile's page

Today was the day! It. Was. Awesome!

It was hard to get it started at first because they were a little confused about everything and didn't quite grasp how the game goes, but I managed to convince them to just play by promising that they'd learn the rules through playing. So we finally got started.
The team has a human wizard named Drisa, a human fighter named Abdul, a dwarf fighter named Danlig and a human cleric named Megarella.

So the very first problems arise at the beginning. I tried to get them to introduce themselves to each other and stuff. Well, Drisa and Megarella were just fine with that but both of my fighters were bored at the thought and just kept asking if the could attack the others. I told them no. I tried to get them to RP properly, but then just gave up because obviously they needed to warm up to the game first. Well, then they didn't want to go with Drisa and Megarella, they wanted to go solo or with each other. The rest of us didn't want that so we tried to talk sense into them, then Drisa just decided to use charm person on both (we cheated a little with that, she hadn't prepared them and we didn't count them, they were just there for the convenience this time). She managed to charm one of them and he had to follow, then the other went with them because alone would have sucked. So we finally got properly started.

After that things went smoothly in a way. Like, they did warm up and have fun playing, but they really didn't do much anything the way it was planned to go XD No problem though, I was prepared for that and I'm good at improvising. Now some fun highlights:
-The fighters just can't open a door normally. They have to hack it down. Except that they didn't manage to actually do that even once because the doors were too tough and they had bad luck with rolls.
-Megarella got the hang of this very soon, which is awesome because she's the one who is the most inexperienced with this kind of thing. She's the only one who has never played any kind of RP, while the others have at least played some computer games.
-The lake scene was super fun, Danlig went there all alone because he's that stubborn and then almost drowned there because he just had bad luck with rolls. Drisa followed after him soon and fished him out with a grappling hook. I made up rules for that when she came up with the idea :D It was used for that purpose a few more time when Danlig went to the lake again.
-Megarella and a goblin had a ridiculously awesome fight because they just both kept epicly missing each other, rolling things like 1-3 each time they tried to hit. Danlig was actually standing there next to them both (surrounded by goblins so he concentrated on the other ones instead of helping with that one) and at one point he went and said that he's the one that's actually in danger here because those two swing their weapons so badly that it's more likely that they'll hit him than each other. Needless to say, everyone cracked up at that point.
-Drisa wanted to study the goblin drawings so I had to make stuff up. I made up that there were pictures about the Goblin King being epic and slaying enemies, and I actually accidentally made it so that the latest picture was about him being against a spider but not having slayed it yet. So the smart wizard figured out that there must be a spider in this cave. Damn, it was just too awesome.

We didn't quite finish the cave yet because the time to start playing just kept being pushed back until it was actually very late, so we could play about 3 hours and then we had to stop because Megarella has work tomorrow. Everyone really got into the gaming after the awkward start and both the fighters actually did great job at RPing character interaction too once they got sucked in to the game. They said the most hilarious things IC.
Also, I got a new player join the team :D Drisa's boyfriend was watching us play and then at one point started playing the enemies for me. Then after the game he said he wanted to play a rogue the next time. So we'll be making him a character and have him join the group.

Can't wait for the next time! It's maybe day after tomorrow. Eeee~

Thanks everyone for these lovely replies :D I'm so happy to see people care. You even gave me some really good tips, I'm certainly using some of them.

I'll have four players if I'll manage to convince my older little brother. He's currently on a holiday in another country so I haven't had the opportunity to talk with him yet, but considering that he occasionally plays computer RPGs it shouldn't be hard to get him to try this too.

Yes, I plan on making Black Fang a recurring villain. My sister asked if this game has any larger plot (fun fact: we've both played Baldur's Gate so her example was "Is someone's sister kidnapped or something?" :D Kinda makes me want to use that one just to honour the first RPG I played) or if it's just random adventures and obviously thought the former would be the better option... so I plan to make this have a larger plot. Black Fang will do nicely, though I plan to try and cook up some other important plot points too. I hope I'm not biting more than I can chew.

I'm so excited :D
I generally don't do forums much but as I came here to see what downloadables are available for free, I noticed that there's a forum too. And since I had to make an account here anyway... I just can't help but share my feelings with anyone who reads posts like this.

I bought the beginner's box a few months back but wasn't in a hurry to get to playing as I have limited amount of people to play with. I want to play with my siblings and that meant that I had to wait until December, when my sister comes to town. Now the time has finally arrived so I started looking at the material a few days ago to be ready and now I can hardly wait. Good thing there's much preparation to do so I have things to keep me busy until the actual game.

And by much preparation, I really mean it. The game is in English but we want to play it in Finnish so that it's easier for us, so I have a whole lot of translating to do (I'm only translating the Black Fang scenario and some rules, otherwise we can work with the English). Good thing I'm fluent in English and I have a lot of experience in computer RPGs so this isn't an impossible task at all.

Now my only worry is that the scenario might be all played and done fast and I haven't had the time to start writing a brand new one yet. It's only a week left before my sister comes. Well, maybe I'll have the time to write another adventure before that. Or I can work on it while she is around, hoping that the first adventure doesn't run out before I'm done.

So, a question: how long does it generally take to play the Black Fang scenario? Will it be played in one session (2-5 hours) or does it last longer?