Critical Fail

Years ago, before the dawn of time, my brother, a couple of friends and I found a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide and a random AD&D module, whose title I don’t even remember, in the basement of our friends’ house. It must’ve belonged to their dad, and as righteous nerds – we had spent the last few hours diligently copying the code for pong from the latest issue of Computer magazine into their TSR-80 to play – we grabbed some pens (yes, PENS!) and the few remaining character sheets from the pile to roll up characters.

Over the next two hours we must’ve created the most broken builds of Fighter, Wizard, Rogue and Cleric ever made. You see, we didn’t have a Player’s Handbook and had no idea what we were doing, so we just gave ourselves everything that sounded cool.

And then, we decided to play. I threw the map on the table in front of everyone and we looked at each other and said, “Now what?” We rolled some dice, tried to figure out how that applied to THAC0 and eventually decided, wow, this sucks, threw the sheets in the trash and never looked back at it.

Back to the Future

Now, fast forward 30 years and there’s a rerun episode of The Big Bang Theory on the TV. Howard Wolowitz finally gets to be DM. He starts in with the Nicolas Cage voice and then, after Raj quits because Lucy got out of work early, he resurrects Raj’s character and continues the game. Around the same time, I started watching Stranger Things and there were the boys playing D&D in the basement. As I watched these moments finally made it click for me: That’s how you’re supposed to play!

The last piece to fall into place for me happened when we took my son to see the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves. My son, who was nine at the time, started asking me questions about the game after the movie (and during – parents, you know how that goes). I told him what little I knew and asked if he wanted to learn how to play. He agreed and I immediately went on Amazon and bought the Starter Set, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual right then and there.

We played that weekend and he enjoyed it (at least he said he did), but he always managed to find an excuse not to play when I asked him in the following months.

Time Marches On

Another year passes and we’re travelling to a family graduation. I had started listening to Critical Role to help me get an idea about how the game is played and, was making a trip to the grocery store with my niece’s husband. I had forgotten that I had the podcast playing in the car and it comes on when we head out.

He turns to me and says, “We used to play, but we got in a fight with our last DM because he wouldn’t let me know if I would be able to climb up on a rock. He got all upset and we never got together to play again.” I’m paraphrasing a little, but I got the impression that the DM was railroading them and couldn’t handle it when they tried to do something that would have taken their plans off the rails.

In the Beginning

Anyways, a week later, I texted him and the rest of the group (my niece, and nephew) telling them that, if they were open to it, I would be willing to try to take up the mantle of DM for a campaign, would their daughter, who is 10, my son’s age at that time also like to play? The answer was a much more enthusiastic yes than I had expected. Of course, hearing that his “cousin” was going to play, he quickly jumped on the bandwagon and agreed to play when we traveled to visit them over summer vacation.

I decided to do The Lost Mine of Phandelver because it was the adventure included in the official Starter Set and had what I thought were good directions for the DM. About a week later, my son asks if we can include Minecraft when we play.

Sure, I said (anything to keep him interested). I then proceeded to mix in the newly released Lightning Keep Minecraft-baed one-shot and the Monstrous Compendium Vol. 3: Minecraft Creatures content that had just been released.

The Downward Spiral

So, I created a portal that took them from Faerun, just off the High Road on the way to Phandalin, to Aetheria, my Minecraft-themed world. I would figure out how to get them back later. I wrote a great scene around how they would find the portal and the travel through it into Aetheria. It would be awesome, it would be EPIC! While I’m at it, if I run Dragon of Icespire Peak, they can spend more time in Aetheria! Then, I can have them travel back and forth as they advance in level and they can finish both starter sets and it would be AMAZING!

And I spiraled out of control. By the time we drove down to see them I had four campaigns built up that I wanted them to complete: Phandalin, Icespire, Lightning Keep and a fourth that I had made up where the party was going to participate in, or prevent, the creation of the Minecraft Creeper!

Well, I know what you’re thinking – What the fuck are you doing? That’s crazy! Have you even played before, let along run a game? The answers are: I have no idea; Yes, it is; No, I haven’t and Nope! So, let me tell you the story of how that went next time.