"I'm invincible!"
- Useless Lou
So, this was a simple enough assignment that everyone immediately screwed up.
My instructions were straightforward. “Bring characters. Think about all the skills that you’ll need to survive in a dungeon. You’ll need people to fight, to heal, to cast mighty spells, and sneak around to find traps and stab enemies in the back.”
I really should have left that last bit off.
In any case, fairly predictably, they all showed up with rogues. They are, after all, goblins.
Human rogues.
I pointed out that they might want to be able to do some of those other things I mentioned. Like cast spells, or heal, but they were having none of it. Lou in particular was adamant that he’d never need healing.
“Stab and disengage; rinse and repeat! I’m invincible! And besides, I’ve spent some time looking at superiority dice rules. Apparently you need an abacus and engineering won’t loan those out.”
So, fine. Rogues it is. My own fault for playing with goblins.
Next we worked on backstories a bit, and established how they knew each other and why they were adventuring together. Turns out they were all in the backstabbing club in high school.
They aren’t good backstories. But you have to start somewhere, and rather than let good be the enemy of crap, we proceeded to agree upon some basic guidelines for how we play the game, which I’ve listed here.
- I’m right.
- Your job depends on my goodwill.
- No whingeing.
- Don’t be late.
- Pay for pizza.
- Your character is likely to die (see rule 3).
- No rules lawyering. If in doubt, see rules 1 and 2.
Next week, the adventure begins.
