Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Boiled Head Broth or Gaming with My Wife

This week my wife agreed to roll up a character and go on an adventure, or as she puts it 'its like a little play'. Wife Rule #1, let her pick out her own dice because she will want the pretty ones. Wife Rule #2, another reason to let her pick her own dice is that she can't balme you for her crappy rolls later. Or maybe she can. I heard about her 8 intelligence all game long 'you made my character dumb'. See picture of character sheet.

She wanted to play someone who could heal and fight a little. So I explained the cleric class to her and she chose to go in that direction. We were playing a variation of Swords & Wizardry. I let her choose two first level spells, Cure Light Wounds and Detect Evil. I did a quick explanations of the spells and then we were off to shop for her character. She seemed to enjoy this process. Then I did a quick tutorial of what dice were what.

Before I go any further my wife would like everyone to know I did not provide full disclosure, so I was the reason she died on her first adventure. I was not allowed to use a GM screen because she kept calling it the 'cheater screen'.

"How do I know what you rolled?" asked the wife.

"You don't. Sometimes a GM needs to make rolls in secret." I answered.

"That sounds like cheating. You can say you rolled something when you didn't," the wife accused.

"Yes, that does happen. It's called fudging. GMs do it to enhance the game sometimes. I don't do it though." I tried to explain.

"Sounds like cheating. If you get to see my dice rolls I get to see yours."

So it came down to a game of if you show me yours I'll show you mine. So the GM screen went back on the shelf.

Her first adventure is was built around a boy who had gone missing. This is where I I failed to fully disclose. I had trouble explaining all the options she could do. She kept asking what I would do and I encouraged her to tell me what she wanted to do and we'd figure out if she could do it. During her time tracking the boy she came to a section of the woods where she didn't want to go in. She wanted to go back to the temple and get reinforcements, but I wanted her to handle the situation on her own. Rewind to the shopping phase, she rolled enough money to get a suit of plate mail and a shield, I praised the protection they provided and how hard it would be for her to get hit. Fast forward to the woods again. I had the boy scream to give a sense of urgency so she didn't go back to her temple. She burst through the trees and saw two goblins teasing the boy who was tied up to a tree. A short fight ensued. Goblins rolled two natural 20s killing her character (bet she would have liked me to have fudged those rolls now). She was not happy about that and blamed me for her character's death.

The second adventure had her delivering a potion of healing to an ailing woodsman in the forest. This time she encounter two goblins she snuck up on them and whacked one and killed the second before they got to attack. This is where she asked 'can I cut their heads off?'. Since they were fighting over the woodsman's axe I said sure. She said she wanted to make boiled head broth. She wanted to make healing potions from the broth to help cure people who were damage by the same creatures. Very cool idea. I slipped that one into my develop later file.

She found and healed the woodsman unconscious in front of his cabin while a goblin warrior tore apart the inside. She later learned the woodsman had found a bracelet near a large treestump. After devising a plan and killing the goblin warrior my wife in true gamer fashion, looted him, chopped off his head and kept the bracelet.

I few things I got from this, one that there weren't any (at least that I know of) very short adventures to start someone on to learn the basics of the game. So came up with 8 different starting adventures for a new person to learn on. I'll be posting the PDF later this week. And two, I like that boiled head broth idea. Three, let your wife pick out her own dice.

7 comments:

  1. The idea of making a potion out of monster parts to heal damage caused by that monster is indeed cool. Hail to new players with no preconceptions!

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  2. "You made my character dumb." "Sounds like cheating. If you get to see my dice rolls I get to see yours." Ha ha ha. I haven't met your wife but I have heard on Skype and I can definitely hear her voice when I read your blog.

    The Spider Farm (Dragonsfoot) and The Ruins of Ramat (Brave Halfling/Arcana Creations) are both good starter adventures. I've used them both and the players liked them a lot.

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  3. Good stuff! I'm looking forward to begin playing a game with my own wife shortly. re: open rolling - I already do most rolls in the open, but with the deadly nature of OD&D at 1st level, I'm gonna set her up quickly with some friends and a (probably short lived) mentor or two to help get her feet wet. The boiled head soup thing sounds like something my own wife would come up with... a sort of homeopathic tincture approach? I think her thing is aromatherapy though, maybe I can work that in somehow. :)

    Looking forward to future reports! Cheers

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  4. "I encouraged her to tell me what she wanted to do and we'd figure out if she could do it... She wanted to go back to the temple and get reinforcements, but I wanted her to handle the situation on her own."

    I don't know, to me this seems like a conflict. You're saying she can do what she wants; if she wanted to go get reinforcements, why on earth wouldn't you let her at least try? Her character; her choice.

    Plus you had the boy scream "to give a sense of urgency." If the only reason you had the goblins make the boy scream was to make her go on, in spite of her inadequate armor, then she's right: "sounds like cheating." You had the NPCs do something based on PC behavior that only you as GM knew about. No wonder she's peeved!

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  5. Ew, boiled head aromatherapy would stink. I've had the pleasure of smelling bear head as it boils away for hours on end in the garage (to remove the flesh for a skull mount). Come to think about it, that would be an ambience finishing touch for some dank dungeon chamber.

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  6. @Dave - "Plus you had the boy scream "to give a sense of urgency." If the only reason you had the goblins make the boy scream was to make her go on, in spite of her inadequate armor, then she's right: "sounds like cheating." You had the NPCs do something based on PC behavior that only you as GM knew about."

    The only reason I had the goblins take the boy was get her to rescue him. I wanted her to handle the situation instead of having a group of others solve the problem. Now if this was going to be an on going thing I'd have no problem with getting reinforcement, but I wanted to demonstrate combat. Goblin just got lucky with some rolls. Armor wise she was a tank. Plus, I mean come on she is Diana Prince, Wonder Woman waiting to kick butt.

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  7. Totally sounds like the time I tried to get my wife to play (she never played before). Same pretty dice, same behind the screen argument, the same 'what should I do now?', the same low rolls (5 Charisma Dwarf!). It's funny reading about it.

    Looking forward to your quick start adventures.

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