And So It Begins...

It's difficult to put into words the sheer elation I feel, having finished the first session of our new Castles & Crusades campaign - Tekralh.

This is the first role-playing game I've actually run for over a decade, and - as I've said before - I've bottled out of running games several times since I came out of hospital in 2005 and have been very anxious about whether my health (both physically and mentally) would be up to the challenge.

There was a lot of preparation (not all of which came into use this time round), but it all seemed to go very well. Everyone - Nick, Clare and Pete - appeared to enjoy the evening and all threw themselves into the adventure with great gusto.

The only thing I forgot about was the "thematic music" (the Dragonlance movie score), which sat unplayed in the stereo.

Nick liked the use of poker chips for the character's "hero points" and said we'd be using them the next time we played Hollow Earth Expedition.

The main benefit of running the game in my own house meant I could have everything set up how I wanted it, ready and waiting for the players. I think the 'home ground advantage' also helped me relax and get more into the swing of things, taking control of the game as necessary.

As had been requested, we were starting off with an old skool dungeon crawl, just to remind us old timers (ie. myself, Nick and Pete) what we loved about playing Dungeons & Dragons back in the day.

Only about 90 minutes of actual hacking took place as the start of the evening was taken up with consuming pizzas and sundry snacks that my good lady wife had supplied, and creating Pete's character (the half-orc druid Gregor).

The Chessex Battle mat turned out to be my best investment (complemented by my water-based OHP markers obtained from WH Smith on Monday), although eventually I might break out the "dungeon tiles". Even though we've never really used figures for RPG combat before, it instantly helped everyone visualize what was going on.

My only problem, which I will have to work on next game, is that the combats were still quite static; I got so swept up in the excitement of rolling dice that I didn't really move the monsters around much.

Everyone has taken away their character folders to read, which included the latest draft of the Tekralh guide book, a summary of the C&C key rules, their character sheets and a couple of pages of 'house rules' (mostly cribbed from either Dungeons & Dragons 4e or Hackmaster), so hopefully we'll be able to use more 'new rules' next month.

In the meantime, Pete is going to work on the background of his character, while Steve (our last player) has offered to create his character 'online', so he can hit the ground running at the next meeting of our little group (which I've decided to call The Tuesday Knights) in September.

A brief account of the party's exploits can be found here, on the Chronicles of Tekralh blog.