Next Week

Earlier this month, I committed to running D&D on the 30th. One week from today!

It's been so long, I am not quite sure where the adventurers were when we stopped playing last. I remember we completed Region A.

Fortunately, DM Genie has all my notes. Let's see what it says....

B25 - The Observatory! And we'll have a new player.

I know, it doesn't make sense to most people, but we are really looking forward to this.

All in Our Minds

Last night was Dungeons and Dragons again. What a blast!

Role-playing games still don't make sense to most people, but those of us who enjoy them love putting our minds into mysterious situations, unusual characters, fantastic places and then watching a story spring to life, based on the actions our characters take.

Our group of D&D players is not into the "role-playing" aspect as much as some people are. We're not built like actors, who spend time becoming someone else. But we've read enough fantasy, seen enough movies, played enough video games, that we like our grown-up version of "Let's Pretend."

When a group of guys [because that's what we are] get together, we get weird, silly, sometimes rude -- and we laugh! Then a battle occurs in the game and we feel as if we're participating in a movie, but not knowing which heroes will kick monsters to the curb (Gallant) and which will die (Jeran) valiantly. Who will cower and stay out of perceived danger so consistently that he'll be left behind when a door slams shut (Harvey) and which rogue will be "in the zone" and be able to disarm deadly traps to uncover loot that will help the campaign survive? (Japheth)

Yes, I do believe that Dungeons & Dragons is one of the great games. And having "The World's Largest Dungeon" in which to play makes it easier to enjoy the game on a consistent basis.

But the real fun is in the people who play, the experiences we share, the unpredictability of the story each night, and the combination of fantasy, mystery, heroics, danger and silliness that fill an evening.

Like I said -- It was a blast!



.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

This was session 2 in Region B of "The World's Largest Dungeon."


Dave Arneson died this month. He and Gary Gygax were the primary co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons. They left a legacy with an influence that cannot be measured.

Region A - Complete!

Yeah, so most people won't care about this but...

The D&D Dudes completed Region A of The World's Largest Dungeon last night, February 12, 2009.

I thought I had blogged about TWLD before, but I can't seem to find it -- at least not in the blog since I moved from Angelfire over here to Blogger.

The World's Largest Dungeon is a hard-bound, 840-page book which contains one massive D&D dungeon. It is written for the 3.0 (or 3.5) rules, and it contains 15 large regions, labeled "A" through "O." In combination with the DM Genie application, I have been able to run nine evenings of adventures with much less preparation time than if I had designed every part of the adventure myself and run it using paper and pencil.

We took a look at the record sheets for the characters which the Dudes brought into TWLD. Wow. We started them on February 7, 2007. Two years ago! So, it took us 2 years to do one region. That means we have 28 years left before we're done!

Or, another way to look at it: We took 9 sessions to get through Region A. If we could stick to monthly D&D Dude Nights, taking a couple off each year, we'd be able to get through another region by this time next year. Still, that's 14 more years of fun!

TWLD was a gift from Sherry for Christmas 2006. I had seen it for several months in Jimmy Jam's, but couldn't justify spending that much money on a D&D item, especially since I didn't know if we would ever play regularly enough to make use of it. Wise and sweet as she is, Sherry realized I'd play it, if I just had it. It's been a wonderful gift. We've had nine evenings of fun, plus plenty of time talking about it in between.

Oh, and Big Dog -- if you want to run a dungeon again for a while, just let me know. We can pause again. It's not like we have a schedule to keep in our progress through TWLD. (That's one of the reasons it took us two years to get to this point -- we took time off to play in another campaign for a while, and that was definitely fun, too. I get to play a character of my own. Lyric the Sprite [Not a 'fairy!' Never a 'fairy!' Fairies are silly!])

Coincidence

Tonight, I'm preparing for our next D&D adventure. We're finally getting back to "The World's Largest Dungeon" and I'm entering the necessary information into the DM Genie.

While I do this I will watch some TV on DVD. The next episode in my viewing of "Star Trek" (the original series, is "Catspaw."

Wizards, castles, dungeons, familiar, spells.

Quite fitting, wouldn't you say?

I wonder if, when Mike moves back to the area, he will find his way into TWLD, or if we'll end up doing other things. I know we have planned to do d20 Modern, and that's going to be so cool, who knows if we'll get to D&D or not.

In any case, this sort of preparation is fun. Dungeons. Laptops. Star Trek. Not a bad night.