This blog post will be different from my other ones. Yes, there will be a few photos of tabletop miniatures, but there will mostly be a discussion of playing the game they were designed for. I have always been a painter, not a gamer, so this is my initial foray down the rabbit hole of an RPG. Ta-da --- I joined a group of senior citizens playing D&D for the first time. 

This all started when one of my friends wanted to get closer to her teenage grandson. So, she started talking to him about the games he played and heard about Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. Subsequently, she went to our fitness instructor, a not-quite-30-year-old true geek. The next thing you know, Laura (name not changed to protect the guilty) volunteered to DM a beginner's group, and several of us immediately signed up during our next coffee break between classes.

Being the nerd I am, I jumped right in and filled out one of the online questionnaires focused on picking a character. I ended up being a halfling wizard. I thought it fit me. I am short and, despite multiple fitness classes, not exactly athletic. Plus, I wanted to play with magic. I know folks often choose to play a pure fantasy character. However, I wanted my character to be me with a twist.

My next step was to find a figure. Well, there are not a lot of female halfling wizard models. Also, I did not want to spend much money to begin with. So, I ended up with a simple model and a need to paint it quickly. I learned about slapchop, and it suited my needs exactly. See the end of this post for the photos.

I then hit up D&D Beyond to create my free character. I changed a few things, but it gave me a good starting point and suggestions for cantrips/spells (more later). So, I felt relatively prepared for our first campaign with dice gifted by Greg and Meredith, my background knowledge of the fantasy genre, and a newly minted halfling wizard. But boy, was I wrong.

At this point, I should introduce the party. We consist of a halfling wizard (Beryll), a half-orc barbarian (Gijiki), an elven ranger (Rolan), a gnomish paladin (Kiera), a fairy druid (Inge), an elven rogue (Matilda), and last but not least a half-tiefling bard (Nisha) - not necessarily common characters but an interesting group. I will be using our characters throughout the rest of this blog to protect the innocent.

Also, I should mention that we are not your typical RPG players (six women and one man) --- we are all retired, have fairly recently moved to an active (and I truly emphasize the word ACTIVE) 55+ community, and for the most part, have never even heard of an orc let alone a tiefling before a month ago. So, D&D was to be a bonding exercise with new friends. To paraphrase the song line, "Girls (and one boy) just wanted to have fun".

The evening of our first campaign came. We all sat around the table looking like deer in a headlight (literally and figuratively since we started around a table in a tavern). With some gentle coaxing from our DM, we got through introductions and backgrounds, much of which related to wanting info on lost parents for some reason (it made me feel like it was a seance). We were then amazed to realize we could order food and drink. We got hung up on having some boar stew (perfect with a nice Barolo) but rapidly left the tavern on our first adventure to rescue a girl kidnapped by goblins.

We learned about how to ask questions before heading out into the woods, but we need to practice this more. We are an act-first, think-second group. Thus, we have gotten into trouble more than once. Rolan is the poster child for this behavior. He rushed ahead directly into the path of a group of goblins, almost getting himself killed. During the resulting battle, Beryll learned she was ineffective as a Ray of Frost wielder. Despite several attempts, not even one little ice crystal formed. Gijiki stormed in to help but missed several times with her mace.

The dice were not in our favor that night or in subsequent ones. We learned the hard way that this is a game of chance. Skill comes with knowing what to do when something we have not quite mastered yet. We also learned about searching dead bodies for items, which we forgot at times, much to our detriment and chagrin.

However, it was Nisha who was the highlight of the evening. She had us laughing so hard that tears were streaming down our cheeks. The group decided she should go into the temple chamber to distract the bugbear. We all thought she would keep him occupied by playing her flute for him. Instead, she threw off her shirt, fell to her knees (she claims she has kneepads), and proceeded to seduce him. It worked. It allowed the rest of us to kill the goblin priest (using Magic Missiles this time), bring down the bugbear (with one-two punches, mace blows, and a short sword), and free the girl. However, we made such a commotion that she ran off, never to be seen again.

It took us five hours to get through the first short campaign. Kiera was the most together. She knew what she was supposed to do as a paladin and saved the day. She figured out the ending riddle so we could get the loot. 

Even though it ended well past our bedtimes, it cemented our fellowship and made us eager for more. We have subsequently taken baby steps on a longer adventure. Inge surprised us all by turning into a wolf at precisely the right moment. Who knew fairies could shapeshift? And Matilda figured out how to open the lock to let us into the tunnel. Getting through it was another adventure with a chorus of singing and a pretty lame bedtime story. Oh well!

We all survived due to a very understanding DM who coached us along. There have been times when this feisty bunch of retirees surprised her and others when we made her proud. She has our undying thanks.

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Beryll Models

Below are photos of the slapchopped halfling wizard figures that I played with. I started with Beryll 1 but forgot how delicate these figures can be. She survived the adventure but had her legs broken off during transport home. I managed to glue her back together but got Beryll 2 for the second gaming session. 

I am a collector of unpainted interesting models (my justification for a grey box of shame, which is actually a drawer). So, I could not resist ordering two 3D-printed figures through Etsy. However, when they finally came, they did not exactly exude the image of a halfling wizard I hoped for. In any case, I wanted them for this blog. So, I played by adding Midnight City to enhance the basic shopchop technique. This is definitely not my best work, but you get the idea.

Somewhere along the line, I was pointed to the Hero Forge website and fell in love with designing the model of the character I wanted to be.

The rest of the group was interested in graduating to figures with more personality but were unsure where to start, and were all nervous about putting paint on a model for the first time. So I customized figures for the others with some pizazz but simple lines for the beginner painter. 

Stay tuned for a future blog post about leading a band of newbies through their first painting session.