December 7, 2007: Not Too Busy for D&D

CNN has a great article today about the twenty five year old Commodore 64 computer system.

Today was incredibly busy.  I never got a spare moment to do anything at all.  I was rushed off of my feet from early morning until late in the evening.  By the end of the day I was seriously exhausted.

After work Ramona came over and she, Dominica and I all went to Food for Life for some dinner.  We ate and returned to the apartment to just hang out for a little while.  Originally the plan had been to play Dungeons & Dragons tonight with about six people but we failed to find a dungeon master who was able to run a game for us so the three of us were just going to hang out.

But Dominica has been really itching to learn how to play – she has been hearing about it for years and just this past week finally decided that she wanted to actually try playing it and is now quite anxious.  And Ramona had been looking forward to playing so they eventually talked me into running a game even though I have never had a chance to learn the D&D v.3.5 rules which are the only ones that we have any material for here at all.  I was not planning on acting as a DM so this was going to be rough.

Min and Ramona watched some DVDs while I worked frantically to find some game material, learn some basics (I have neither played nor run a game in about fifteen years) and generate some characters for them to play.  Ramona found her roommate Chris and he came over to join us.  He was in the original lineup for a game tonight and has never played before either so he was excited to get to try out a game.

It was just after eleven when we managed to get started playing the pre-generated game “Bad Light” from Wizards of the Coast.  I did the best that I could considering we had no dice, miniatures, props or experience.  We played until one thirty.  We all had a good time and decided that we would break for the night (I have to be up to work at eight in the morning) and play again tomorrow.

As rough as it was – it feels great to get to play again even if I am stuck as the dungeon master for the moment.  It is really hard to believe how long it has been.  But the AD&D Second Edition rules were brand new last that I played and much of my gaming was done under the “D&D Cyclopedia Rules” that predate the second edition.  Now we are playing under version 3.5 and version four is expected early next year.  A lot has changed in the world of D&D.  And the “Known World” or Mystara setting seems to have passed by the wayside during that time as well leaving the Forgotten Realms as the primary setting for the game.  When I used to play the FR was the “young upstart” setting.

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