Just before Christmas I picked up the Beginner Box in the hopes of revisiting my tabletop RPG days when I was younger. A little background, I began playing AD&D 2nd edition just as it came out back in the 80’s. Being a kid at the time, I found a few campaigns to play in; however I found my true calling as a Dungeon Master when I started high school. From then on it’s been me behind the DM screen running one shot adventures, marathon sessions, convention games, and of course long time campaigns. These days I’m a married father of one, who is now in high school herself. I was lucky enough to share the love of tabletop RPG’s with my wife, however with the evolution of D&D we found ourselves not interested in the newer iterations of the rules and gave up the hobby a few years back.
I came home with the Beginner Box in hand one day, opened it up and looked through all the contents, especially the Game Masters booklet. The 3.5 rules set had always been our favorite and Pathfinder’s reputation for keeping the best of 3.5 and making a lot of what was good, even better, was indeed living up to all that I had read.
I approached my wife and daughter, asking if they would be interested in playing through the adventure using some of the pre-generated characters included. I dusted off the dice bags and we all sat down and played for a couple hours, laughing, role-playing, and pitting them against the challenges of the adventure.
We didn’t complete the whole adventure the first night, I left things at a cliffhanger just to help peak their interest. When I concluded the session, I was immediately met with them both wanting me to run some more, just another hour. After a few more sessions my wife and daughter, with the help of an NPC finished off the adventure and reported back to Sandpoint with their findings.
With over 17 years of playing fantasy RPG’s and over a decade with my wife at the game table with me, giving up the hobby was the hardest thing to do. We both missed it but never really talked much about it, largely in part due to the fact we had been tied up with MMORPG’s and other computer games. This Beginner Box helped rekindle the fire for tabletop RPG’s again, and I can say I’m now the proud owner of many of the Pathfinder books and adventure paths, even a case of the new miniatures! I’m beginning my Rise of the Runelords campaign this weekend with outside players and of course my wife. I’m also running a side campaign for my 16-year old daughter and her friends on a once a month basis.
Thank you to Paizo and all who helped create the Beginner Box, this is the best introductory set I’ve ever played/game mastered. Thank you for helping us turn off the computers for a few hours and enjoy some good old tabletop role-playing and dice rolling. No computer game can compete with the imagination and depth of a Pathfinder game session.
