1st Level Player Characters and Dungeons

Brave, foolhardy, gutsy or greedy, which pair of these words describe the three players (five player characters in The First Game of Our New Campaign - Part 1 as they explored the dungeons. Perhaps a case can be made for all four words describing them. First of all I don't ever remember seeing 1st level player character penetrate so deeply into a dungeon on their first outing. Part of that may be due to my not playing the dungeon and the encounter tough enough. In my defense, I submit that I haven't reffed in a very long time and they did have a 10 year old player in the game which may have affected my judgement. I promise to do better in the next game. On the other hand, every0ne had fun so I don't want to make it too tough. Yes, folks the ref does walk a tightrope from time to time.

On the other hand, I have also never seen a group of players so single-minded in pursuing treasure with no apparent consideration of the hazards involved. I don't mean to insult any of my players, I am just amazed, that is all. Again maybe it is the long time since I reffed and the generation gap. I grew up on all kinds of fantasy fiction, fairy tales and folklore so perhaps I am by nature more cautious.

What these players did was to start on the 1st level of the dungeon, and then end up on the 3rd level, 6th level and 5th level of the dungeon. In the process they got involved with an odd artifact of the dungeon which is manifested in different ways in different parts of the dungeon and it moves around from time to time. In addition, I now have to create a fair amount of dungeon to keep from creating any obvious dimensional contradictions.

The players should bear in mind that they have not found all of the secret or hidden doors in all of the areas that they have been in, not everything is exactly as it may seem. In addition, they might want to reconsider getting too far into the dungeon without knowing more about the first level of the dungeon. Hopefully in the second game coming up we will have more players and that will give them more options and viewpoints.

I was encouraged when I found out that the 10 year old player was describing the fight with the giant snake to his mother and she kept asking "where did they take you that you saw a snake that big?" and he kept saying, "No mom, it was imaginary and going on with the story." I was also encouraged when I found out she is going to let him play again. :)

And in case it needs saying, I was very pleased -even though I was surprised with some of their decisions-with these players and with the game. I hope they all had as much fun as I did. More thoughts on this at a later time. Yes, I will keep editing these posts as I think of/remember things and as I get time.