I’m a DnD newcomer that went straight to DM’ing so I could play DnD at home with my family (started off with the Essentials Kit). So far I have about 10 session hours’ worth of DM’ing under my belt.
About 6 hours into DM’ing at home, I was able to get my co-workers interested in playing, and start a playgroup with them.
Last night, I had my Session 2 with my coworkers Playgroup. Almost all of them are first-time DnD players, and I’m running LMoP for them.
They’re traveling with an ox cart from Neverwinter to Phandalin to deliver some goods when they get ambushed by a troop of Goblins.
Off the bat, the Cleric, who is driving the cart, gets stabbed unconscious by a Goblin. This immediately puts the party in a fight-for-your-life mindset.
The fight rages on, they almost get TPK’ed, but the tables finally turn when the Wizard, with 2HP (and everybody else either at the same hp or otherwise down), finally succesfully puts the two remaining Goblins to sleep, and the party is able to finish them off. Everyone shouts with glee as they secure their win.
One of my co-workers was only slightly interested in the game, and heading into Session 2, was still on the fence about continuing to play, and admitted as much to me.
After Session 2, she sent me a message: “I really liked it, I’ve decided to continue playing DnD. I like being a Wizard.”
It’s the day after, and the guys are still talking about last night’s experience in the group chat.
Feels good to be their DM :)
Love hearing stories like this.
I always tell my players: the best sessions aren’t the ones that are planned and executed perfectly. It’s the sessions where things go tits up and you manage to find a way to prevail that stick with people.
No plan survives contact with the enemy
Session went well last night, did it?
Haha, unfortunately had to cancel this week due to a player traveling but hopefully next week’s goes well!
That is awesome. It’s a really good feeling to pull that hail mary in a desperate situation.
The best feeling is knowing that your players had fun and want to play more. Glad you are all having fun. LMoP is great for new players and DMs alike
The cleric immediately getting offed is literally how I run my games. I always go hard and try to put the fear of God in the players asap so that they look forward to finding treasure and levels, giving them a push to find interesting solutions to simple problems.
Good job running the starter campaign!
Amazing! I did the same thing… Never played just started DM’ing form friends… the satisfaction of a good session lasting for days and the afterthoughts is very rewarding. This is the true spirit of the game that brings back people to the table session after sesssion. I remember being rigid on my first sesssions and then we had a wild one where I had to improvise because the party went off track and everyone remember that session! We are four years into the campaign and they are going to the final act. They finally are on the right way behind the bad guys, a lot has changed, I hope they win.
