Project 365 1-2-2010 D&D… And DEATH!!!

Tonight I nearly died.

Well not me, per se, but my character, Hyrak Durgog, a dwarf cleric of Moradin – The God of Mountains and Stone! 

Yes, my dear readers, I am a big old geek, nerd, goober, call me what you will but I am confident enough in myself that I don’t mind shouting out to the world that I am a D&D player and proud.  I’ve been playing for about two decades and in that time I’ve fought creatures great and small, monsters, demons, elves, dwarves, orcs and even the occasional human.  It’s a good time around a table with friends and, despite the stereotype, does not require a dark basement to play in nor is it evil.

Side Note – Geek Cred: So you know I know what I’m talking about.

  • Player since AD&D – All editions
  • Currently playing 3.5 Ed. – The older editions, while great, aren’t as quick as the d20 system for our group and we just can’t get on board with the changes in 4th ed.
  • I usually play a cleric but have also played a paladin, fighter and, my most advanced character, a bard.
  • We don’t multi-class.

Our current campaign, where we are trying to save the countryside from an army or orcs dedicated to overtaking all of the land, has been going for a few years but we have only played very sporadically.  I play with two of my childhood friends, Jeff and Scott, and their wives, Ami and Liz.  Rene avoided drinking the Kool-Aid.  The boys and I have developed a very specific (read: loose) play style that apparently doesn’t mesh well with regular D&D players. Or maybe it would, we’ve rarely ever played outside our little circle.   We have always used the game as a reason to get together and catch-up, not just to play, which can lead to long off-topic conversations right in the middle of battling all manner of horrible creatures.  While we play very diligently, we don’t play very seriously.  Tonight was no different, but we did get ourselves into a bit of a situation.

It takes months to manage everyone’s schedules to  point where we can all be in the same room at the same time so each time we actually sit down to play we truly come from a place where we want to get as far through the adventure as we can.  But as all well laid battle plans, this intention never survives contact with “the enemy.”  The enemy here being side conversations and, particularly in my case tonight, over confidence.  Taking so long to plan a session means that when we are around the table we actually want to catch up so we wander into the inn, then we talk about Jeff’s tour around the mid-west/east coast.  We fight some cobalds and then talk about Scott & Liz’s baby.  Then the baby cries so Scott or Liz go to see her, Jeff and I hop on our Blackberry’s to see what’s going on in the world and like that for five or six hours.  While it may sound boring, we actually enjoy ourselves quite a bit – especially when it comes to harrowing feats of combat!

Scott has a reputation among D&D players as a cruel, cruel Dungeon Master (that’s the guy who sets up the game and controls all of the monsters and civilians who aren’t the players at the table).  I’ve watched as my characters have been laid low by some vile plan of his only to have my sorrow met by the cackle of his evil laughter.  This game was no different.  To get to the point we were investigating an underground city when we were attacked by by a small group of evil dwarf-like things that resemble Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings.”  We beat those, but the fight got the attention of a group of heavily armed and armored orcs, the same one’s we’re trying to save the countryside from!  So, naturally, we attacked them.

This was not the smartest of moves.

Not the dumbest either, but definitely not smart.  We rushed in, as did the orcs, and, at first we were actually doing pretty well!  Spells were cast, swords hit their mark, all the things you want to see happen, but just as easily as things can go well they can turn against you.  And boy-howdy did things turn.  First Jeff’s guy was beaten near death, so he took off running only to be followed by the enemy.  Then Liz’s character went into hiding to avoid getting herself killed.  So Ami and I were all by ourselves facing over a dozen angry orcs.  It went about as well as you can expect.

 So there we were surrounded by a green wall of death, swords crashing against shields, my dwarf’s warhammer crushing skulls, and then… nothing!  I was slashed at and brought down!  Ami fought on valiantly but was brought down as well.  I paraphrase Jeff when I say, “You haven’t lived until you’ve died in a Scott campaign.”  Or something like that, it’s hard to remember and I like my phrasing better.
At that point I had to leave, I had to teach early in the morning in San Diego, so I left my near dead body on the battlefield as my companions tried to figure out what to do.
Rene just told me that I’ve gone into too much detail on a story that no one cares about.  It is entirely possible that you don’t and the big part of the story is told so I’ll wrap up the rest quick: I didn’t “totally” die.  Ami did.  Liz and Jeff saved us and resurrected Ami.  And that’s it. 
Yes, it’s true, I used “death” in the title to trick you into reading my blog.  *EVIL LOL’s!!!!!!!!!*
See you tomorrow!

6 Comments

Filed under dungeons and dragons, hobby, project 365 2010

6 Responses to Project 365 1-2-2010 D&D… And DEATH!!!

  1. Liz

    I didn’t entirely go into hiding; I stood stealthily behind the orcs and shanked them one by one, until I failed my Move Silently save.

  2. Heh! That’s great! Of course, I have to admit that, being new-ish to tabletop gaming, I loves me a good game of Vampyre. My poor Gangrel sprouted a squirrel tail after a botched frenzy roll. Oops! šŸ˜›

  3. Me and Justin have been playing for 10 years. We don’t have a campaign currently. I don’t care for the new D&D as much. I enjoy the new Star Wars RPG and Mutants and Masterminds. Ever give it a try?

  4. Yeah, Danesh, the d20 system in general is cool and fast and action packed, but 4th ed is just a mess.I feel like it’s designed after the miniatures game and not to be a D&D game.

    Star Wars looked cool, but I never played. Nor have I played Mutants and Materminds, what’s that?

  5. Larry Boyd

    Mutants and Masterminds is a d20-ish Superhero game, by Green Ronin publishing. The books are really colorful and cool with comic book style presentation, and nice glossy pages. It isn’t exactly d20 system, but it’s close enough to make an easy transition.
    As far as 4.0 goes, I’ve read through the books and I am itching to give it a try. I wouldn’t say it is a mess, but it is definitely designed to be played with miniatures. It doesn’t really bother me though as I’ve been using miniatures for a long time now. My complaints about it basically boil down to the fact that there isn’t nearly as much character customization available as there is in 3.5. Which might not effect you much if you don’t allow multiclassing anyway. The other thing is, it doesn’t really seem like the character classes play very differently from one another, as it seems like most attacks and abilities boil down to d20 role + key stat (ie Intelligence for Wizards, Dex for rogues, str. for fighters etc.) vs. AC, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will. Do some damage, and do some some minor secondary effect. In actual play it may differ, but I haven’t had the chance yet. On the plus side, it doesn’t seem like things get broken and overpowered, at least not as easily.

  6. M&M sounds fun!

    Larry I completely bow to your superior knowledge in regards to 4th edition. When it was first released I remember the conversations with other players and it just felt more like a board game than a role playing game, I play 40k for that. My crew has even been considering going back to AD&D 2nd/3rd just because we miss it so much.

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