Blazing The Trail - The holding of hands

Some of my favorite memories of D&D were when I first started playing. My older brother introduced me to D&D by running a campaign for my cousin and me. I think we were around ten years old. Everything was so new and amazing. I'd read some D&D style choose your own adventure books by then, but they were nothing compared to rolling dice and casting the spells!

I did find some of it daunting though, and I have to believe it's because of my age. I was maybe a little young and not yet street smart enough for some of it. Perhaps I was just a bit dumber than the average kid, who knows? I thought I'd share some of the things that I did as a young, new player, in the hopes that A) I'm not alone! and B) those of you who are thinking about teaching new players might see some of the same behaviors and throw the kid a frickin bone!

You should be aware that new players, once they understand the gist of the game, are going to be excited. They're going to want to try ALL of their abilities whether they're applicable to the situation or not. One of my first characters was a 2e Magic user, whom I named Nostradamus. (Whatever, I bet your names weren't that great when you started either). I had spells! How exiting! However, I didn't really know what most of them did, even after reading the descriptions... (Find me a ten year old kid that can even pronounce "Audible Glamor".)

At one point, our group was fighting with an ogre in a cave, and I thought that I could perhaps blind the ogre with a light spell. Now, in my opinion, a caster would know that if he casts light in a cave, it'll make it easier to see. That spell is not designed to blind anyone. As a GM teaching a young player, I would consider it my duty to explain what will happen, as the character should know, even if the player does not. ... Evidentially, my older brother didn't think so. I used the spell, and now we could all see better. Wasted spell.

Of course, I did learn the use of the spell, and no one died in that encounter (I think anyway... it was twenty years ago now!) so no harm done really.

In another early campaign, (my first actually) I played a Ranger named Majellon (again, keep comments to yourself), and my cousin played a cleric named Fenor. We were traveling somewhere on some important quest, and right in front of us stood a wall. Being the ten year-olds that we were, we knew what to do with walls! Just like fences outside, walls were meant to be climbed! A grappling hook would be nice, I thought. Unfortunately, I didn't have one. I asked where I could get one, and was told "Your character doesn't know, but he's heard of Thieves using them. Perhaps a Thieves guild" which I'm sure (looking back) was said tongue in cheek...Fenor, with the help of a Spider Climb spell began to scale to the top, where he was met by a guard with a crossbow.

This is how I learned that sometimes cities are surrounded by walls.

I have to thank my brother for being so hands off on my learning of the finer points of the lives of the player character. Without his indifference, I wouldn't have the material I needed for this blog entry. Though, I would have probably figured that although both Fenor and Majellon were elves and grew up in the trees (Axewood and Silverwood respectively, if I recall correctly) by their age I'd imagine they'd have heard about cities being surrounded by walls, and would have thought twice about the whole thing. In other words, a simple nudge on the part of the GM would have been nice...

We were detained for a while, so that the local law enforcement could check out our story, and then we were released with a "Don't climb city walls, dumbasses" comment. We left town for the next place, prepared to look for a door on the next wall. I, however still thought a grappling hook would be a good asset, just to have on us. We came to the next city, and lo and behold, the wall had a door. It was closed though, so we knocked. Eventually a guard came down and asked us our business. We told him, and he was satisfied. As he began opening the door, my curious character asked if there was a thieves guild in town I could check out.

As you might imagine, we were asked to move along. Without that stop, we couldn't replenish our food, and I was forced to eat my horse, when he starved. Of course, I, as a player, had never heard of a tinderbox, so said horse was eaten raw. Later that day, I was asked to roll a saving through to see if I woke up. Not because of any sort of food poisoning or anything, but because I'd apparently forgotten to explicitly say that I slept at night. I was rolling vs exhaustion.

Please be patient with the new young players, and give them the benefits of their characters' experiences, even if they themselves have not had it.

Did you every have experiences like this as a new player?