For six teenagers no less.

Three are regulars at my store and three were recruits from the D&D club my regulars started at their high school.

So, anyhow, we've got three dwarf fighters, an elf wizard, a human cleric and a human fighter.

We started with just the three regulars, character creation was pretty slow between my balky printer and my slow computer.  I wound up with a pretty messed up printout but the bulk of the book is semi usable.  What a waste of ink.

So I'm in a bit of a bad mood to start with.  I'm fudging the adventure and the monsters but that's nothing new, the regulars change their minds about what they want to play during the week so even if I'm prepared I'm not prepared.

I tell them that they're investigating the ruined temple of the god of love that lies near their village.  The temple was destroyed during a moral panic involving a cuckold king two hundred years ago.  The architecture is the height of elven craftsmanship with graceful statues and bas-reliefs covering the ruin.  There are few places with a roof or more than two walls standing and much of the bigger marble rubble has long since been carted away.

The scholarly human cleric is taking notes and studying the ruins and the dwarf fighter is complaining about shoddy elven workmanship.  The human fighter stands around.  Suddenly an orc appears out of the rubble, he greets the cleric and points out some finer points of the architecture.  As they talk he tells them that there is a dragon that hoards the treasures of the wealthy cult deep in the dungeons beneath the ruins.  He offers to show them the way in.  As he is unarmed and friendly they agree.  

The entrance is a steep shaft, formerly a chimney that plunges deep into the earth, once the heroes have clambered in, he waves this friends and they dislodge a large slab so it blocks the entrance.  Then they go to their usual entrance and wait with loaded crossbows.  Just in case.

At the bottom of the shaft is a narrow, crooked corridor.  The sounds of gibbering and foot falls are approaching.  The dwarf fighter hides behind some rubble and the other two draw their weapons.  Soon they see six hunched and hairy humanoid figures dressed in rags and armed with rocks and crude clubs.  Seeing the intruders their vacant white eyes narrow and hooting and screaming they attack. (AC 10, 2HD Morlocks)

Only to be struck down by a guiding bolt and some sharp rolls on the fighter's part.  The cleric searches the bodies and finds fleas, which decide to immigrate immediately.

Moving down the corridor they come to a T intersection and take a left which leads to a room with a beautiful spiral staircase in the corner.  The human cleric starts down and the dwarf fighter decides to roll down the stairs.  He misses his target and rolls down past him.  The human fighter shrugs, sighs and proceeds to follow his companions.

The new players show up and we take a break to generate characters.

Once that's done we get back to the action.  These bold souls, two dwarf fighters and an elf wizard have come exploring and looking for gold and come through the entrance the orcs usually use.  They've just discovered this room with an incredible spiral staircase carved from a single gigantic slab of marble.  When a strange dwarf rolls into their midst, cackling madly.  The dwarf fighters raise their great axe and warhammer to strike but the elf wizard shouts at them to stop.  Soon the two groups have met, shared information, and decided to proceed downwards together heedlessly ignorant of the idea that dungeon levels are progressively deadlier.

Dwarf fighter B and C decide to race down the stairs.  C wins and runs straight into a massive, shaggy figure armed with a club. (AC 13, 6 HD Morlock)  The heroes work their way down the stairs and into the fight taking a few minor wounds until dwarf fighter C finally brings it down with a weak blow.  (Only 4 damage)

The Dwarves choose to ignore the three passages out of the chamber and continue down.  Dwarf B notices that the step ahead of him is unusually reflective but fails to stop dwarf C who flails wildly but avoids slipping on the well oiled stairs.  Dwarf B tries to push him but he manages to grab a hold of his treacherous pal and neither of them fall.  Looking to tie a rope to the railing they discover that razor sharp bits of metal have been worked into the cracks on it so anyone who slipped and grabbed it would have badly cut up their hands.

Carefully proceeding the party worked its way down to the next chamber.  Here the stairs end on a dais in a large room with a tall ceiling and beautiful fluted pillars and bas-reliefs.  A lone Kobold stood in the third of six passages exiting across a ninety degree arc.  The bolt narrowly missed dwarf B and the Kobold turned and fled.  Dwarf A was the only one to pursue  the little fiend but Dwarf B followed more cautiously.  Neither paid any attention to the oil soaked wooden planks that had been placed along the passages floor, so when flames burst out behind them they were nearly cut off from the party.  Dwarf B turned back and leapt the growing inferno and Dwarf A charged down the corridor pursued by the hungry flames.

The gods of gaming bless you for running a group of teens!

How'd the system feel in play? Did it flow well? How long did rolling up characters take?

At this point the group proceeded to use all their skills to find which way they should go.  The elf wizard cast comprehend languages to read the inscriptions above the doors and learned that they were star signs.  The bull, the wolf, the stag, the lizard, the bear, and the spider.  The passage of the lizard was burning.  As smoke billowed into the chamber the party began to cough and be short of breath.  The stair was acting as a chimney and drawing up the smoke.

The human cleric and dwarf B opted to try the passage of the lizard feeling it must have burned out.  The cleric cast a spell of resistance before charging in and arrived fresh and clear just after the wheezing, coughing dwarf.

Now, Dwarf A had fled the burning hall and discovered a room that contained a large steel grinder with a hopper, a bin, and three interlocking grinding wheels.  Additional bins in the room were found to contain fine white dust with the occasional bit of bone mixed in.  The hopper contained a few human bones and the bin below the grinder was about half full of the same powder.  Dwarf A spilled a couple bins and filled a sack with some of the powder before the human cleric and Dwarf B arrived in the room of the bone grinder.

The remaining party members (dwarf C, elf wizard, human fighter) chose to take the path of the spider and soon came into a chamber containing a red brown stained press that fed into a brown stained bucket.   There was an open barrel full of rags in the corner.  The door on the other side of the room lead to a room with a door that went ahead and a door to the right.

The dwarf and wizard went back to the stair room, which was filled with smoke but they decided to take the next passage.  The passage of the bull.  

The human fighter went right and found himself confronted by two kobolds with long spears.   He charged and struck them down.

Meanwhile the dwarf and the wizard passed through a room where dozens of skeletons hung from hooks and desiccated flesh and skin covered the floor.  The wizard turned to dwarf C and asked "What kind of temple of love was this?"  To him the machinery spoke more of manufacturing than religion.  Actually they were manufacturing the love potions and elixers of prowess they were famed for, who said the cult of love had to be lawful good clerics?

Hearing fighting out the other door from the room they looked and saw the human fighter strike down two kobolds. They decided to return to the stair room.  The human fighter didn't even notice they were there.

The human cleric, Dwarf A, and Dwarf B came out of their corridor to the sound of running water, a ten foot wide stream lay before them with a narrow ledge along its edge.  Following the  flow of the water to the left they.  Soon came to a treacherous looking stair along the side of a fast flowing waterfall.  Behind them came the horrible squeaking of a spiked wall that was rolling towards them.

The human fighter came out on the ledge along the stream behind the six kobolds who were pushing the spiked wall.  He opted to explore to the right.

Back on the ledge Dwarf A dove into the shallow stream with a yell and vanished down the cataract.  The human cleric and dwarf B clambered onto the spray slick stairs.

At this point it was closing time and I needed to pick up my son from his scout camp so we, left it there.

Okay, bearing in mind that I was disinclined to like 5e and didn't plan to carry it in my store, here's my thoughts.

First off the good.  I like the proficiency bonus.  It's a bit one size fits all but it's quick and clean which is what D&D should be.  I like the core basic game being pared down to the core four classes and races.  I like that the alignments are back.  I'm okay with the weapons and armor, though I haven't delved into encumbrance yet.  I like that weapons and skills are finally run the same way.

The bad.  Actually so far, I really don't like this game.  That's a bit unfair maybe, I liked the beefy first level characters of RMSS but here we've got first level spells doing 4d6 damage, three magic missiles, at will attack spells on par with swords, at will light, at will comprehend languages, at will mage hand.  And the fighters are pretty brutal too.  Six two hit dice monsters dead in three rounds, brutal.  20 Strength dwarves for the win.  Also, fighters can heal themselves which is smart and dumb at the same time.  Why not just give them 2d10 hp at first level?

I think character creation is too cumbersome for a basic set and you have to watch out for overlaps between background and class skills.  

My guess is that WotC will hold onto some of the 4e fans, win back some of the Pathfinder fans but fail to dent the OSR at all.  Previously I thought the OSR had something to worry about but now I don't.  There's nothing for them here.

Quote from: David Johansen;764993My guess is that WotC will hold onto some of the 4e fans, win back some of the Pathfinder fans but fail to dent the OSR at all.  Previously I thought the OSR had something to worry about but now I don't.  There's nothing for them here.

Ouch, well honest opinion, be prepared to be set upon, of course.

The weird thing is though, they have a really good sound Basic system - that they couldn't help themselves in shitting up with stuff that should have been optional.  

I mean you start with the basic, absolute core, then add - how fucking hard was that?  3isms - options.  4isms - options, storycrap - options.  Instead we got representative elements of all in Basic.

Cue Haffrung saying no one on earth has every cared what an old schooler will buy.  

Still, they would be fools to OGL this thing, because again, they've proven themselves incapable of writing a piece of descriptive fluff to save their souls.  Nearly everyone would take their quite excellent core mechanics, scrape the what should have been optional shit off it, and resell it under 100 names.

Quote from: David Johansen;764993My guess is that WotC will hold onto some of the 4e fans, win back some of the Pathfinder fans but fail to dent the OSR at all.  Previously I thought the OSR had something to worry about but now I don't.  There's nothing for them here.

It's not a bad guess.

Interesting read, thanks, David.

Thank you David for being honest and also to CRK for being you as usual. It looks like it's solid and will get people playing not pissing and moaning about their favorite edition/version that nobody actually plays on a wide scale.

And by actually playing something with the same language as 0-3e or the OSR.....be the lingua franca which is their actual goal.  So in the conversation for real.

Not that you or CR are a bit biased? No, that's silly given you had three walk ins playing pure chargen players on top of 3 others the very same? Naw.. ..never happen.

Quote from: Endless Flight;764999It's not a bad guess.

except for all of us who play mostly only old school games who have really enjoyed 5e that is.  Man's welcome to his opinion of course, but it doesn't jive with the feedback I've gotten from a lot of old schoolers, both IRL and online

The proof will be in the pudding. Either people will play it or not, but it seems off to a good start, plenty of games starting, and a lot of old-schoolers playing. That could be just some initial exuberance though, so who knows?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;765010except for all of us who play mostly only old school games who have really enjoyed 5e that is.  Man's welcome to his opinion of course, but it doesn't jive with the feedback I've gotten from a lot of old schoolers, both IRL and online

The thing I will say in their defense is that even though they constantly annoy me to no end with WTF moments, WotC still have put out an edition of D&D, which is a refreshing change, and I haven't seen a WTF that is going to cost me more then a second's work, unlike 3e and 4e, which required substantial rewrites to make a RPG that didn't make my teeth itch.

OP will soon be dead to me I expect except for "Basic Only" events, but that was too much to hope for anyway.

Quote from: CRKrueger;765015The thing I will say in their defense is that even though they constantly annoy me to no end with WTF moments, WotC still have put out an edition of D&D, which is a refreshing change, and I haven't seen a WTF that is cost me more then a second's work, unlike 3e and 4e, which required substantial rewrites to make a RPG that didn't make my teeth itch.

same here

Quote from: CRKrueger;765015OP will soon be dead to me I expect except for "Basic Only" events, but that was too much to hope for anyway.

OP? :confused:

Quote from: dragoner;765018OP? :confused:

Organized Play.

Quote from: CRKrueger;765019Organized Play.

Ah, ok. That is a bummer anyways.