We Came, We Saw, We Almost Conquered!

I took my two oldest children to their first ever gaming event! It was the Worldwide D&D Game Day: Player’s Handbook 2 event hosted at The Comic Lair. If you haven't been to the store, you should stop in when you get a chance, Chad(the owner) is a great guy and is very knowledgeable about everything in his store. The place is literally packed wall to wall with geeky gaming  goodness, from comics to action figures to boardgames, he has a little bit of everything!

It was a little under an hour drive for us, but we still arrived early and took advantage of that time to sign up for the RPGA. I wanted to make sure that we all joined so that we could participate in any future WOTC sanctioned events. I even plan on trying to organize some events closer to home.

Turnout was light for the event and some expected gamers didn't show up, so when our GM (Matt) arrived we ended up drafting the proprietor Chad into the group and ran through
One Dark Night in Weeping Briar with just four characters in our party. My son had his heart set on playing the warforged barbarian Squeaks and was immensely pleased when the GM passed the mini and character sheet for the character to him, to start the game. 

I was given the dragonborn paladin Balasar and my daughter chose to play the tiefling invoker Markaria. Chad opted to play the gnome bard Roswyn. With the minis and character sheets handed out, it was time to game!

Matt (our GM) seemed a little nervous at first, but soon warmed up and had us combating the evil creatures assaulting the poor inhabitants of the town of Weeping Briar. The WOTC pre-generated character sheets were very handy, although I wish they would have printed the power stat blocks in color, it made it a little more difficult to quickly select the powers we wanted to use. It was also difficult trying to use some of the abilities of the characters since we were not familiar with most of the powers. I think WOTC should have designed the adventure with lower level heroes, the eleventh level characters had so many options that our combat started to bog down as we scanned the huge amount of choices available to our characters. I imagine it would have been a lot smoother if we had leveled theses characters from first through eleventh ourselves (and thus gained familiarity with the nuances of the different powers), but as it was, I didn't think it was very new gamer friendly.
We ended up gaming for about four hours, but didn't quite make it all the way to the end of the adventure, because plans we had  for later in the evening required us to leave. Still we all had a good time, Chad & Matt were great and my kids got their first taste of 4th Edition gaming! I myself had a good time, much better than my own first experience at a gaming event as a teenager.

We were already talking about things we would have done differently with our characters on the drive home and planning for our next event! I've posted some pictures from the event in this article and I will post the remainder up in a gallery!

Worldwide D&D Game Day ... and so it begins

It's 4AM on Saturday, the 21st of March and I woke up so excited about Worldwide D&D Game Day that I couldn't fall back asleep, so I decided to blog out some of my nervous energy! As part of a promise I made to myself to get back into active RPG gaming I decided to start trying to attend more gaming events and cons throughout the year. As luck would have it WWD&DGD has arrived at just the right time. Last week I did a quick search on the Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) website and found two fairly local spots that were hosting the event. I immediately fired off some emails inquiring about the event details and asked my two oldest children if they wanted to attend! Their answer was a resounding yes!

The three of us have gone over the tiny amount of information provided by WOTC and have tried our best to be prepared. I've read over the fourth edition rules a couple of times and I've run my oldest son through a mock combat or two to test out the rules of the system. I'm hoping the DM that is running the event is a good one, so that he can help us with any rules we aren't familiar with.

The marketing blurb for the game day reads as follows:

Ready an Action to Play on March 21st!

Prepare yourself (and your friends) to join D&D fans all around the world on March 21st for Worldwide D&D Game Day: Player’s Handbook 2. Everything you need to play will be on-hand, so it’s a great chance for new players, as well as veterans, to band together and find some adventure.

Come try out the new races (such as the gnome) and the new classes (like the invoker and barbarian) while you battle wicked fiends and thwart dark plots. No matter if you’re new to the game or a 4th Edition veteran; we'll have everything you need to embark on an all-new adventure.

The adventure, entitled One Dark Night in Weeping Briar, runs in 2-3 hours and includes five pregenerated 11th-level characters. The characters are:

• Ilvarra, drow avenger
• Markaria, tiefling invoker
• Roswyn, gnome bard
• Squeaks, warforged barbarian
• Balasar, dragonborn paladin (uses material from the upcoming Divine Power product)

In addition to the adventure, there's a trivia activity sheet. Test your knowledge of our 4th Edition releases since the game's launch.

We have no idea how the DM plans to assign characters so we've tried our best to brush up on the details of each of the classes and races. Since I prefer DMing over running a player character I have no strong preference for any of the characters above, but my son is hoping for the warforged barbarian and my daughter is torn between the avenger and the bard. I'm thinking I will choose last if given the option. 

My main goals are to ensure my kids have a great time and hopefully make some new gaming contacts/friends. I had a bad experience at my first gaming event as a young teen (that's a blog story for another day!) and I am determined that my kids will have a better first time than I did! Being somewhat of an introvert, part of the challenge for me will be to make sure I keep myself and them engaged in the story and the gaming. A lot of that will depend on the DM, but I am going to remain optimistic! A secondary goal is to sign the three of us up for the RPGA. I'm hoping it will be quick and painless! I am planning to join the GM Program and start running sanctioned RPGA games.

The event is about an hour away (in New Jersey traffic) and starts at noon, we are going to listen to some of our favorite gaming podcasts (Fear the Boot, WOTC Penny Arcade/PvP) on the way down to get our gaming mood stoked. We are bringing our own dice, the Player's Handbooks 1 & 2, a camera (so I can post some pictures of the event here) and our game faces. 

LET'S GET IT ON!