The Red Box

So I was walking through Wal*Mart one fine Saturday evening, when I stopped by the card isle. Its the isle near the front of the store that has Sport, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Magic the Gathering cards. Well I saw something new there that I had not noticed before. There was a The Red Box. It was sitting in the bottom corner all by itself. I could barely read the Gothic text on it, so I bent down and it read “Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set.” Being only 20 dollars, I purchased it on a whim. I brought it home with eager intent, and rapidly opened it.

In the starter set I received everything I needed to play D&D. I received my first set of dice, maps, creature tokens, and a short single player adventure. I played through the single player campaign with eagerness, and then played it again, and then again, and again. Once I finished, the book sent me to the Dungeon and Dragon website for a second adventure, the first multiplayer adventure. Knowing that D&D was for multiple people, I called up some friends and arranged a game for the following day.

***The Next Day***

After purchasing a small poker table, a few more sets of dice, and some D&D miniatures, me and two friend sat down and played our first official game of D&D. I had decided to run them through the same single player adventure that I had played the previous day, just upgraded to be multiplayer.

The adventure started with the two players, a mage and rogue, riding on a cart from one town to another. When all of the sudden an arrow hits the driver of the cart and falls limp. Goblins then appear and attack the players. The players jump out of the cart and quickly dispatch the goblins. So far everything is going to plan and following the adventure in the book.

So now here comes my first “Oh Shit!” moment as a DM, the rouge decided to go to the driver and the rob the “corpse.” When he got near the dwarf, I informed him that the driver still seemed to be alive. The rogue quickly retorted back with “I cut his throat.”

“Oh Shit! What should I do.” The driver was needed to continue the story so I could not let him die, but at the same time I did not want to stop the player with what he as a player wanted to do. So in a panic, I told him that the driver quickly pops back up and stabs him in the chest dealing 20 damage to the rogue.

Well the rogue has 23 life at full health.....sigh.....I almost killed the player without even thinking.

So in my first game as a DM, I panicked at a player choice, then punished the player unintentionally with basically loosing his entire Hit Points.

Looking back I would have had the rogue perform a melee basic attack to attempt a coup de gras, or maybe even had the driver role play something as the rogue went in for the kill. I have learned not to panic anymore because making a quick un-thought out reaction definitely does not lead to good things within the game.

Next entry will be the result of the attack on the cart and learning the rules within the rules.