So,Okay, so I've just started my first D&D experience with someone who is decidely an old-hat at tabletop games as our DM. We will be playing based on the d&d 3.5 ruleset, but my major issue is one involving our campaign.
So, our campaign will feature 3 characters, as follows:
Wurth (me), Human Monk Neutral good alignment
Dwarf Fighter - Lawful Neutral
Elf Sorceror - Neutral good
Gnome Roge/Sorceror (The DMs NPC/PC if someone else decides to DM)
Our first job was to deliver a crate to the mayor in the town to the north. That went decidely poorly when a badly equipped gang of bandits destroyed our cart and killed our driver. We slaughtered them as payment and raided their camp for supplies. Our driver gave to us a holy symbol before he died, and we opened up the crate to reveal a dark sphere of some sort. We took the sphere and the symbol and started our journey north. We arrived at town and headed to the mayor's castle. The guard at the front stated that he would not be back until the next day and that he may have a job for us the next day as well.
So, we stayed the night at a brothel/inn combination (our DM loves us :P) and set about gathering information from around the town. From what we have discovered:
- The wizard supply store owner offered us 1000gp for the sphere, which he admitted was an egg of some sort
- The local populace is wary of the mayor, as children and women tended not to leave the estate once they entered.
- It is possible that they mayor bribed the king to become mayor.
- The owner of the apothecary confided in us that if we were to visit the mayor we may need something with which to repel demons.
- The mayor's guard offered us a job to go to a possibly religious site west of town to gather 20 leather items which explained 'looked like shields' for 100gp
- We returned the holy symbol to the church, upon which time we learned that the driver of the cart used to be a member of their order, and the symbol was given to him when he left.
So, given that we are generally a good-aligned party, I feel the urge to investigate these matters further before immediately handing over the egg. Our current plans involve checking with more locals about the mayor and surrounding area, and to talk with the priest specifically about the cleric's involvement with the mayor and any rumors/information about the cave.
Our DM is incredibly talented at keeping track of things in his head, and gives us a "Karma rating" which is at -8 for not burying the bandits or our fallen driver (yikes). He states that it will not affect gameplay unless our karma drops into the -100 range or above +100, but we should keep that in mind when we play.
Anyways, what do you guys give as suggestions for how we should proceed? Keep in mind we are all first-time D&D players and all of our characters are level 1. Thanks in advance for any input you guys give.
Whatever you want.
Honestly, you can do anything.
You feel your characters should do X, Y and Z, based on their backgrounds and alignments, so those are good places to start.
I would probably start with the talking to the mayor quest, because that sounds like the most likely to start a long multi-session plot and is more interesting to me than "go get ___ things from ___ and bring them back" which I always find lame. But thats just how I would probably do it. In the end there is no right or wrong choice at this point, it is totally however you feel like you want to proceed.*
*Unless your DM is pretty heavy handed, and he is showing signs that would lead me to believe he is, from your posts.
I would probably start with the talking to the mayor quest
My worries are given what we know of the mayor that A) we should not meet him while carrying the egg and B) that our lowly level 1 characters may not escape the estate in one piece. So what I would really like to do is to not rush headlong into something that may end our session earlier than anticipated.
Oh, I also have a bad feeling about the following conversation at character rollup time
The fighter - "I want a 10-inch magic p3nis"
The DM - "Okay, you think it's magical"
O.o I don't want to know how this is going to play into the story, but you can see what I have to work with for party members... heh, member.
The fighter - "I want a 10-inch magic p3nis"
The DM - "Okay, you think it's magical"
O.o I don't want to know how this is going to play into the story, but you can see what I have to work with for party members... heh, member.
It would have been funnier if the DM had granted that it was magical... but that he only thought it was 10 inches.
we had a lot of good discussion about it, one of which was me saying that he had a 10 inch magical penis, and that he also had a ruler measuring a foot (when the actual length I gestured was about 3 inches).
Actually, I believe it's going to be even more interesting than that.... apparently it is going to ... speak. And in a Mexican accent no less.
My worries are given what we know of the mayor that A) we should not meet him while carrying the egg and B) that our lowly level 1 characters may not escape the estate in one piece. So what I would really like to do is to not rush headlong into something that may end our session earlier than anticipated.
So pawn the egg to that mage, hatch it, eat it, bury it, hide it, or whatever you want with it. It is totally up to you.
As for it being too high level for you right now, there are two schools of thought when it comes to DMing.
1- I will scale all encounters to fit whichever plothook my PCs decided to follow.
2- My PCs have to use setting clues to know which fights are waaaay out of their league and which ones they are supposed to fight in order.
Both have their detractors, both have their followers, and both even have their people who say "I don't do either" but in reality do 1 or 2.
This is a good time to find out which your DM is, early in the game. Group 1 will try to hide the fact that they do it to you, to keep up the illusion of "Terribly powerful foes" and Group 2 will laugh a bit, and then slaughter you. Both groups will warn you "This is going to be hard" but usually group 2 is the one that offers "So out of game you might not want to try this quest".
Just keep in mind your PC has no idea of the concept of "Levels" and respond in game as you think they would.
Yes, and I realize that. The problem lies in the fact that my character's motivations are such that he would not be rash enough to defy the mayor this early, nor would he want to leave the rumored 'experiments' operating.
The mayor was expecting the egg to arrive during the day which we left our last session at. Do you think it likely he will send mercenaries after us should the egg not arrive on time?
I recommend frying that egg into a nice tasty omlette. Just to see the look on your DM's face. It should be quite entertaining.
As for the mayor, I concur with the assessment of 'level 1s shouldn't mess with the big-bad'. Put it on your to-do list, and move on to something more manegeable.
With that supposedly-religious site, I'd suggest: A) finding out whether it's ACTUALLY a religious site, B) finding out what these little leather shield-things are, and C) finding out whether 'recovering' them would be likely to bite you in the ass with some divine retribution
the wizard shop wants to pay you 1k for the stupid egg. Do some research on what the egg is, and sell it to the wiz shop if it's not that important. Oh, and see If you can barter the price up to 2k, so one of you can get a +1 weapon... at FIRST LEVEL.
Karma thoughts:
- first, hitting +100 karma is likely to be interesting, and will probably be good.
- second, hitting -100 karma is likely to be interesting, and really could go either way on whether it's good or not.
- third, selling the egg for money is almost certainly a -karma act. You promised to do a thing (help deliver the egg) and are defaulting on it for purposes of greed.
- asking the local priests what they think of the mayor and/or the "shields" is probably a good idea.
- delivering the egg to the mayor won't kill you, and it is not likely to be a -karma act (you are doing as you promised to do) but it could be interesting, and you may wind up having to kill whatever comes out of the egg later.
- your DM is very clearly setting you up in a fairly open-ended game. There are goign to be relatively few game-ending answers, theough there are likley to be a number of them that are good or bad depending.
2- My PCs have to use setting clues to know which fights are waaaay out of their league and which ones they are supposed to fight in order.
Group 2 will laugh a bit, and then slaughter you. Both groups will warn you "This is going to be hard" but usually group 2 is the one that offers "So out of game you might not want to try this quest".
Ah 2, my favorite method of dming :D.
I agree with the egg delivery. Simply make sure the Dm knows you are doing exactly as your promised you would and that rumors are not enough evidence to support not giving the guy an "egg" If it really is 1k gold worth of an item, the Mayor deserves it if he isn't using it for evil purposes anyway. As a Dm, I enjoy messing with players heads, and making them think one guys bad etc. Maybe the mayor needs it to fight a demon in his home. Also, investigate these "shields of leather" before doing anything with them. Stealing from religious sites can turn out really bad.
A thought...
- Now would be an excellent time for you to build (or at least start building) a consistent moral structure for your character - to identify the things he cares about and does not care about, and what he will and will not do. Likewise with the other players, though they don't have to be the same (and, indeed, it can be more fun if they are not). It sounds like your DM is tryign to put together a game with real moral choices and real moral consequences, and your character will be more fun to play, and will fit into the world better, if you build morality in as a significant and complex character aspect.
(note that, in general, "conforming to the game that the DM wants to run" is often a good idea, both in terms of in-game effectiveness and in terms of out-of-game enjoyment.)
Anything that goes for 1,000gp at 1st level has got me thinking that it's worth much much more. I think that it sounds either like a sphere of anhilation(merchant maybe lying to get better price), or dragon egg(probally black considering color). If SoA bury in the middle of nowhere and never look back, if dragon egg hatch it your self then sell it to someone or keep it(you could also give it to the mayor then find it's mama to tell her where it's egg went but that is risky at best).
Also maybe you should ask the church what they thought the driver was delivering.
I'm pretty sure you can't carry around a sphere of annihilation...
Normally, no you can't, I think it maybe experimental man-made version or an attempt. No matter how you look at it I don't think it's good news if you give it away.
So, our second session has come and gone, and some rather interesting developments came about. First, we had a new person join us to fulfill the role the npc rogue was playing. So all four of the PCs are completely new to D&D, I think that's why our DM is being so lenient so far.
[Beginning here is boring reading about the start of the campaign, skip to next brackets for main storyline related stuff]
We decided to go after the leather shields in the cave after the DM making me do an intelligence check to realize that the cave and the holy place were not the same thing... makes me feel like an idiot lol. (We planned on turning in the egg after we got back). We got horses to ride upon for our journey there. During our first morning breaking camp, we saw movement in the bushes nearby. One of us did a spot check, and realized that the whole bush was moving in our direction. We argued about what to do about it until one of us decided to flee for our lives, and the rest followed suit. Might as well have been suicide if we stayed to fight, turns out it was a brown bear (speaking of DM leniency, he said the bear waited 5 turns to attack).
We then spent the better part of 5 minutes arguing about who should pay attention to who in the party, until the DM got fed up and sent what we later learned was his standard 'noob-party killing ambush' after us. A bandit walked into the middle of the road and demanded money. Fresh off our arguing, none of us could get the others to pay attention, and try as I might, I couldn't get the fighter to realize that attacking would have been suicide. Eventually we ran from them too. (leniency wins, there were 12 archers in the forest, all well equipped, and could have shot us as we rode away)
[Here comes the important info]
We got to the cave mostly unmolested after that. After adventuring in the cave, we found a box on top of a pillar. After solving the puzzle, it opened up to reveal a diamond the size of an ostrich egg which emitted a black light. Running out of patience for our discussion on what to do about it, the fighter took it for himself.
We then traveled down a winding passageway to a great room, where we could not see the corners nor the walls once we started walking directly down the center of the room. About 250 feet in, we found the first shield. What followed was basically the M&M scene from ET, where we spot for the next shield standing where we picked the last one up at. That is, until we spotted something shining in the distance. Further investigation revealed it was a massive pile of gold and treasure, just waiting to be plundered. Unfortunately, I remembered what the NPC said about 'only touching the shields' (I made an Aladdin joke about that one), and warned my party to ignore it.
We were on our way out of the room when we heard a voice shout "Cousin, wait!" We turned to find a woman adorned in gold approaching us. She thanked us for not touching any of the treasure, which she had spent millenia guarding. She also bade us to travel above ground and find an egg which had been stolen from her. We presented her with the egg, and she used what I assume to be mage hand to rip it out of the grasp of our sorceror. She thanked us, and then tasked us with killing the mayor for stealing the egg. She told us to each choose 1 weapon from the armory in the passage behind us, which will aid us in defeating the mayor.
We discovered on our way back that a door which we could not open had disappeared, revealing a room whose walls were lined with any weapon imaginable. We each picked out a weapon (4-bladed axe for the fighter, claws for my monk, chakra for the rogue, staff with a line of different colored crystals for the sorceror) and headed to the surface. According to a druid we met on our way to the cave, we had been down there for 4 or 5 days, even though by our recollections it was between 12 and 18 hours.
So there you have it folks, I was definitely not expecting to meet a gold dragon in my second session, but I came out all the better for it. Our current agenda is 3-fold:
1. Learn how to unleash the potential in our new weapons
2. Trigger something in game to allow our characters to level (Our DM will not let us use the level 2 character sheets until we earn them in game somehow)
3. Defeat the mayor.
PS: The fighter tried using a gnomish condom before availing himself of the brothel, and now his 'sword' talks to him in a mexican accent. His name is Jose. He also decided that he is not wearing pants, and shoved the ostrich sized diamond up his arse. The DM made him roll a d20, and afterwards explained that 'you have now developed an intense paranoia about your ass-diamond [think gollum].'