Running my Family Through 4e Pt 1: The Mausoleum

So, on the 27th, I ran my family through a game of 4e DnD, almost all for the first time. My sister had to return to Moscow, ID, where she’s a college student, so the players included:

My mom, the Half-Elf Seeker
My dad, the Human Sorcerer
My brother, the Minotaur Bard
My sister-in-law, the Gnome Ranger
And my wife, Bridget, the Eladrin Swordmage

My brother and wife have played 4e before, my sister-in-law has played other RPGs, and my dad played 0e and 1e back in the day, but nothing since. My mom had played one session of 1e in the 70′s, but hadn’t since.

I explained the basic rules, including at-will, encounter and daily powers, as well as action points, move, minor, and standard actions.

The heroes had been asked by a village to uncover the reason for the lizardman attacks in the region, a mission which led them to a woodsy glade with a ruined mausoleum in the center of it. A pile of boulders, as well as a worn and ancient alter sat outside, and they happily marched forward, not even bothering to be careful or stealthy.

Stepping out of the forest were a pair of lizardmen, flanked by a group of small lizard-looking folk. My dad asked to determine what the little ones were, and a nature roll revealed them to be kobolds. My mom asked if kobolds are known to be evil, and a quick roll revealed that yes, they are seen as the scum of the earth. Not interested in parlaying, the group rolled initiative.

They quickly got the basics of it, with my dad acting as the leader of the group, working with everyone on tactics and trying to figure out how to take down the monsters.

The kobolds were all minions, but I still had them roll for damage. They quickly realized it was better to use at-wills on the kobolds, rather than encounters, and at the beginning of the game, they were sure they wanted to hold off on using their dailies till the end.

Before long (and with my son grabbing all of the pieces as we tried to play) they had defeated the lizardmen and their ilk, and moved into the mausoleum. It was a single tile from one of the forest tile sets. There were a couple of braziers, a small pool of water, and an alter-like table, with two lit candles.

The game was pretty great, because throughout, they didn’t ask to roll dice that often. When presented with a mystery, they would instead try to solve it with ingenuity and wit, rather than a dice roll.

So anyway, back to the room…

They began searching the room. Bridget went to the pool, and found it full of clean, cold water. Her Arcana revealed it to be unpoisoned. My brother had the idea of pouring some of the water on the floor, which then disappeared under the stone table. A little more investigation, and they found a switch near the floor of the table, which slid it aside to reveal a spiral staircase…

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of this first encounter. I didn’t even think about pulling out my camera at this point.

And that was it for encounter 1! I’ll post up about the other two encounters soon, but that should whet your appetite!