My wife had a very good time and she can now understand what the hell I am talking about when I babble about a particularly good game session. I knew that she had a good time when she started recapping the session for me and used geek terminology to do so. Ah yes, the stew works… no matter whether the Gnome or their spouse prepares it!

It is always nice to see newbies take to the game and have fun. Good job Jennifer!

I was an early teen when I started, though. Fondly remember being chastised by my HS science teacher once when I was rolling up dungeons during class time. I say fondly because the guy actually didn’t care that I was designing games – being a true nerd, my work was done early and almost always A material. He just wanted me to keep my dice from rolling across the metal dissection trays and disturbing my fellow students, lol! Ah, the good old days.

But it being the mid-west and all, I was almost the only player in school, period, let alone being a girl.

But yeah, most of my gaming was done with grown ups. Didn’t stop us from running completely hysterical, juvenile and hi-camp campaigns, though. Remind me to tell you about the infamous Kender Blender one day…

I suspect you’ll find it very different, just playing with adults. I’ve always enjoyed my gaming, but I don’t think I’d happily go back to adventures geared for grade schoolers.

No, never did. Did most of my playing in the 80′s and early 90′s (I’ve been out of the game for a while and looking forward to trying out v4.0), and the tables were still pretty testicular in makeup. To many chicks trying to be preppies and Madonna, not enough self-actualized nerds, lol.

I imagine the tone and feel of the table would be different, and it’s something I’d love to try.

Did they all play female characters, as well? I and most of the groups I played in basically played whatever character we thought would be fun or interesting, sex/gender notwithstanding, so I’m wondering if there was an assumption of an all-female party simply because all the players were female.

I’ll definitely have to name an NPC Churk at some point. Nicely done.

@Tony Graham – I agree– when the players want more world and people details (instead of resisting and trying to “skip to the fun stuff”), they’re hooked. If you’re very quiet about it, you could probably steal poor Churk for your own group…

@shytrblemaker – Was there a cool scene that my second hand summary missed? I’m glad that you enjoyed it and want more… it sounds like Jennifer’s thinking along the same lines.

@sonipitts – Glad you enjoyed the post. Have you ever played in an all girl group? This was Jennifer’s first time, and she’s convinced that there’s a very different feel around the table.

Post = win.

OOC: Even for a gnomish wife, you rock. Thanks so much for the adventure. I’m looking forward to moving on to even more adventures!

Desia

I’m an instant fan of Churk/Meep – “one kobold is asleep on watch, with his leg tied to a bucket of rocks” – in a word, brilliant!

I do wish I’d put in some more prep — work took over for a while and I neglected getting an early start. On the flip side, everything I planned was fresh in my mind the next day.

Scott’s got a good report, the only glaring difference is that the poor kobold’s name was Churk not Meepo.

This encounter was by far my favorite. We were about halfway through the day. The women had started to create personalities for their characters and they really began to shine here. Plus, at one point everyone was laughing over the situation and having a good time — I couldn’t have asked for higher praise or a better way to introduce new players.

My goal for the day was to introduce people to not only the mechanics but also why I (or their significant others) love to game. I really wanted them to get to use their imagination in bringing their character to life as well as interact with the other players as characters and as friends.

And we did have some classic moments:
- One player had her husband’s lucky die. Only it didn’t prove lucky for her. Soon everyone was making sure she didn’t used the “cursed” die.

- One player wanted to let Churk live while others were calling for his death. This resulted in some good discussion and some good character development.

- The melee fighter got low on hp and rallied to live on.

I’ve had some good feedback, including people asking me about some characters in the game (some that were ad-libbed on the moment), one person said one of the best parts was that I “did the voices,” which I was really hesitant about doing. Another asked me if we play again will we learn more about the world — a world they’d just had a glance at and one that I was making up as I either wrote it or went along. I was so thrilled that this one-shot I’d put together on the fly was so well received and kept a good pace. It took us about 6 hours for everyone to choose characters and get through the adventure (and the cake and the muffins and the chips and the …).

BTW, I really did love the WotC DnDInsider — especially the compendium. Made it incredibly fast to find monster stats and other info. Also like the encounter developer, but it is very basic — as a new GM I could have used some suggestions about critters to use.

Also, I would have highlighted two lines on the character sheets: the top line and bottom line of the powers boxes. Top is “X vs AC or Reflex or Etc” and bottom is bonus to attack and damage dice to roll. Those seemed the most used and often confusing.

Also, one comment I got was that the player was very thankful the game started and finished in one sitting — she didn’t understand how people play the weekly games with “no ending.”

I was absolutely thrilled overall and would love to lead this group (or a similar one) again. We’ll probably tackle organizing another one in a month or so when everyone’s done with vacations and such.

Again, I loved everyone’s suggestions. I hope I can be as helpful to you as you all were to me.

@deadlytoque – My wife suggested the title for the first article, but I chickened out. A little taunting since then and I decided to run with it this time. You don’t want to know how gnomish women keep their menfolk in line.