My first gaming session

So, I’m sure you all are just dying to know my thoughts on gaming as an outsider/noob.

Okay, perhaps dying is too strong a word. Are you at least mildly curious then?

After some minor technical difficulties (which is bound to happen with you involve three computers, two web cams, various wireless devices and two internet connections in two states!) and chorizo breakfast tacos, we started roughly 11am. I didn’t know it at the time, but Karl did something rather peculiar and started with an immediate battle. I assumed this was typical and gathered later that it was not. Apparently it usually starts more like an AA group with an awkward meet and greet.

The first/immediate battle was sort of confusing to me. I asked a lot of questions. I also did a lot of missing. I think I had a 33% success rate, but didn’t kill my target.

The second encounter went a bit more smoothly for me. I could move without asking “did I do that right?” after every single thing. Sadly, again, no kills and I think I only hit once. One of the more seasoned players was knocked unconscious. This did not bode well for what I felt I could do to not die!

Then came the meet and greet and a whole mess of waiting/mucking about. I’m no good at sitting still in real life, and I’m no good at it in gaming either. I was later told that I picked the perfect character for my own personality then, because Halflings HATE waiting and usually bring about the end of the world while “entertaining themselves”. Jimmy and Karl (both contributors to this site) said to follow that instinct. If I’m bored, my character probably is too. Good to know!

The third and final encounter of the session was by far the best. We were attacked by Goblins on a wooded trail. At first, more failure for me. I was beginning to think I’d only be useful to the party by means of pulling healing scrolls out of my “bag” due to a feat I have that allows me to pull unspecified items out of my backpack during my turn. Sadly, I can’t use the scrolls, but I can produce them! Then, our cleric decided to go after an unlikely target. I was next and had a decision to make…..try for the same target – if I failed the Goblin and Goblin Dog get away – or go for the Goblin itself though I doubted I could kill it. I decided to go for the already wounded dog, and this time I hit!!! And I killed it. The foe that we’d all written off as “the one that got away” was taken down! And I got the kill. Huzzah. I even got high fives (yes, plural).

Overall, I’d say that there’s too much down time for my personal preferences. I realize that the downtime is totally necessary and meant to be there……but I literally dozed off at one point. Karl had to nudge me. The battles were fun, but I’m still clueless as to strategy. I’ve never been good at strategy-based games. And if I need to do anything more complex than stab at someone or throw something, I’m going to have problems. Another issue, we aren’t pursuing this campaign again for over a month. I’m supposed to remember how to do all this after not doing it for a whole month?! I told the guys I’d do at least two sessions – hopefully the whole game – but if there are month spans between each session, my interest will very likely wane entirely. It was nice to be part of the group for a change instead of just a food provider.

We’ll see if I remember how to do this next month. Until then, you probably won’t hear much from me on this blog. But I’ll still be posting over at mine (with a further look at gaming too)! Thanks for the comments and encouragement for my first time out!