While I haven’t necessarily been blogging about our continued D&D adventures, I assure you they are still happening. Team Mayhem has made it back to Water Deep and saw it being ravaged by the opposing forces (and a huge red dragon). To which the group said “F*&$ that!” and promptly went the opposite direction to Never Winter.

Along the way, we picked up a couple more players- our friends Jill and Ryan, fresh from their honeymoon. The Keebler Coalition now has a Dragon Born Paladin of Bahamut named Narexius Balthazar and a dwarf druid named Keelya (so sorry if I didn’t get these right...) with an affinity for hand carved trees.

While I was super happy about Jill and Ryan joining our group, I was also kinda nervous about integrating new players. I didn’t want to overwhelm our DM and I wasn’t sure how the game play would change with two more people. Turns out, I was worried about nothing. Having them in the game feels natural and, honestly, it’s like they’ve always been a part of the group.

We’ve successfully not killed them like the murder hobos we tend to be. My fingers are crossed that they stick around and adventure with us for a while because they both add much amusement and dynamic depth to our intrepid group. Who knows? Maybe with them along for the ride, our group will grow out of the murder hobo phase.

The last time we left our Keebler Coalition of Misfits, we were about to set off on our adventure to Oak Hurst. The next time we gathered, it was for an incredible 10 hours of game time. Now, I didn’t think anything of it. I know that a single session of D&D can take hours. However, I’ve since heard from a couple of friends who do separate games and, apparently, our group’s second time playing was tantamount to a long distance marathon. Go us!

As far as learning the actual game, I’ve discovered that it’s a process of understanding your character and their motivations and then not being afraid of improvising.

That being said, I am not a good at improv. True, I am a writer and I can get the character down, but the on the spot action throws me for a loop. It takes a while for me to get going when it’s time to take action. I find that there’s not a whole lot of time to think through a coherent strategy. This results in more than a few missteps. Like not following up on a blatant plot point from your DM or being extra dumb in your actions and almost getting killed twice. Yeah. That was me. I am still too embarrassed to talk about it.

Another crucial part of D&D is learning how to play as a team while in character. That means getting to know your fellow characters while you are in character. This is proving to be a rather interesting experience since most of the team doesn’t really talk to each other. Most team work at this early stage in the game is negligible. Our characters simply don’t trust each other too much yet. I am told that will come with time. For my character’s sake, I hope so. She’s too inquisitive to be stuck with a ton of non-friendly people. But then she is young, so maybe this is just shaping her up for the world in which she lives.

I will say that all of these prolonged gaming sessions are very fun. I am really enjoying getting to know my characters as they grow and learn.

By the end of our 10 hour long escapade, we made it all the way to Oak Hurst and we met Marl. Here we will learn about the magic apple that seems to heal the dismembered and disfigured, and we will try to help find the other guards that have been lost out of this garrison.

In other words, LOTS of team building exercises for Team Mayhem!

Game On!

Kira

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