Another game

Over the weekend I started another game. One of my regular players from my LL game wanted me to run a session for him and his wife so she could get a chance to play a bit before Gen Con. I decided to keep things simple. A few years ago I took the sample dungeon in the Moldvay Basic book and detailed the west tower and the dungeon under the towers. I broke out my notes, polished it a bit and turned them loose.

They made characters using the Moldvay Basic book. No backstory or details, just roll stats, buy equipment, and go. They created a thief and an elf.

In the first session, they explored most of the west tower. They found lots of old ruined clothing and personal effects, some coin and a ledger in the old paymaster's room, and some old, desiccated corpses. They fought off a couple of giant rats as well. Then they broke into the old captain's room.

The captain's room was now the lair of a ghoul that had been preying on humans for years. There were hundreds of broken bones scattered around the room, mostly under the bed and piled in the corners. The ghoul climbed above the door and tried to ambush them, but they heard him scrabbling around as they were opening the door. The elf rushed in, scored a successful attack and fended off the creature long enough for the thief to land a killing blow. Searching the room turned up a trick chest that had the bulk of the garrison's treasury and a nice sword.

I ran the game using straight, by-the-book Moldvay rules. Once again, I was reminded of how simple and elegant this particular rules system is. It was easy to run the game, and I only had to look up a couple of things - the variable damage table and the XP table at the end of the game. I had a blast!

It was also a lot of fun running a game for a brand new player. I always love playing with people that are just learning to play and feeling their way into the hobby. It's great to see the ways that they approach things that a lot of experienced gamers consider routine. There is a great mix of wonder, trepidation, and confusion that they have that makes it fun to play with them.

I'm looking forward to continuing the game, and I am thinking this is going to be the first session of my game in the Coastlands.