Today was rather interesting, and a first for me as a gamer. Which, I am rather proud of how the day turned out.
My aunt came to visit my mother, and she brought along my two cousins who are aged 20 and 17. The oldest cousin brought his girlfriend (age 19) with him, as they seem nearly inseparable. The Youngest cousin knows I play computer games, so he came downstairs to my room and we started talking about what new computer games I’ve been playing (Skyrim mostly). His brother wandered down after a while and sat bored in my recliner while we geeked out. A little while later, the girlfriend goes looking for my oldest cousin and finds my room. She sees the Middle Earth poster on my wall and states she loved the movies. I tell her about the books they are based on and show her where they are on my bookshelf. She’s only seen the movies, but is a big Harry Potter fan of both movies and books. While looking at my bookshelf she pulls the Pathfinder Core Rules book off my shelf and asks what that was.
So I explain what Roleplaying Games are while she is flipping through the book looking at the pictures. She was intrigued by the cover at first, drawn to Seoni and asked who she was. I explain about the Iconics and how they were used as examples for the different types of characters people can play. By this point she has reached the Class chapter and stops on the picture of Amiri for the Barbarian.
“That’s me! I want to be her!” she states emphatically. “Will you teach me how to play?”
I’m stunned for a bit, I’ve never encountered anyone this excited to learn an rpg, and wanting to play right then and there. Not to discourage her from the hobby, I agree. She tells both my cousins they are going to play with her and that she is going to be a Barbarian named Amiri. I pull out my Beginner Box and let them look over the character sheets and Player’s Handbook while I start writing out Amiri on one of the blank sheets since she isn’t one of the Iconics in the BB. A few minutes later after hurriedly transcribing a character sheet for Amiri, we sit down and play. So, my oldest Cousin chooses Valeros (Fighter), his girlfriend is Amiri (the Barbarian), and the youngest is playing Ezren the Mage. To round out the party I send Kyra the Cleric along as support played by me.
I run them through the intro dungeon in the Beginners Box. Amiri quickly asserts herself as the group leader, and surprisingly enough, does a very good job of it. The first encounter with the goblins takes a while due to explaining the rules and how the game works. They move into the next room do some quick scouting. They hear the goblins squabbling and not wanting to leave enemies behind them they charge once again into a fight for which the Goblins are no match. As I read the flavor text for each room and encounter Amiri absorbs it all, and plans accordingly. She didn’t miss a beat with anything. She noted down each bit of information and fully explored that area before moving on. Even the room with the Fire trap, she got how to bypass it without taking any damage. She’d seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so she caught on to the Magical Voice’s instructions. She even commented on the movie reference.
They work methodically through each room. After the quick work with the Goblins I started doubling up on the monsters, adding 2 more Spiders (total of 3) to the Spider encounter and a second Reefclaw in the water fight. Even so, they steamrolled through all the encounters, their rolls were just amazing. Once they were satisfied there wasn’t anything left on the main floor, they go back into the goblin throne room. Amiri uses the Potion of Levitate and floats up to the shelf and ties a rope for the others to climb. They then cautiously advance into the next room where the piles of bones pick themselves up off the floor and advance on the would-be grave robbers. The original encounter was with only 3 Skeletons, but with the ease they were blowing through everything, I upped them to 6 Skeletons lead by a Skeletal Champion.
This fight did not go the party’s favor at first. Losing initiative to a bunch of Skeletons (no one rolled above a 4), and Amiri taking 3 solid hits (one a crit), knocking her down to 2 hit points. Worried she was going to fall to a bunch of “dry dusty bones” (her words), Amiri rages for the first time and proceeds to kick some Skeletal booty.
After the fight, they decide to take a rest here before moving on. They still hadn’t found what would leave behind a large black fang, so they knew something was still in here. Plus the graffiti on the Wall mention something about a wyrm, and Amiri had a pretty good guess as to what that meant… Still, before moving into the next chamber, Amiri gathered up the skulls and thigh bones of the Skeletons and tossed them down into the Throne room. She didn’t want those “Boney Bastards” (her words again), coming in behind them while they were exploring. I think the Skeletons creeped her out.
They then move into the final room and are attacked by Blackfang the Black Dragon they were sent to find. Initiative is rolled. Ezren hits Blackfang with his Magic Missile. Valeros charges the dragon with the Dragon-Bane Longsword and scores a good solid hit. Amiri goes next, raging and charging the dragon with her Large Bastard Sword. She rolls a natural 20, confirms with a natural 20, and then rolls 8s on all 4 d8s for a total of 35 points of damage… Blackfang dies in a spectacular display of Barbarian fury! And since he rolled a one on his Initiative roll, never got to attack…. Amiri then proceeds to take its head as a trophy just in case no one back in Sandpoint believes her. She asks if the hide could be made into armor, for which I reply I’m sure someone in Sandpoint could make such an item for her. She then proceeds to skin the dragon. Once done she asks me what the dragon wings were like? I said, dragon wings are usually batlike, but tougher, and she then asks if she can cut the membrane out from the wings. I said sure, and ask why she wanted it. Her reply was simple. To make soft leather boots and gloves to match with her new black dragon armor of course!
I ended the game there as my mom and aunt got home about that time. As a parting gift I gave Amiri my copy of the Pathfinder Beginner’s Box, for which she was overjoyed. She was talking about how she was going to get her two girlfriends to play since they liked Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings too. Her excitement and exuberance was so awesome to see, and was really cool to have been a part in that. My two cousins had fun, but I don’t think they enjoyed it as much as she did. But here’s hoping I’m made a new gamer out of her at least.
They live several hours away from us, and I've already gotten two calls from her already on their drive home asking rules questions and how things worked. I’m going to email her some websites for her to go to, and offered to answer any questions she might have, she just needs to call.
