The major one was the car trouble I experienced on the weekend. My alternator died, so my battery was no longer recharging. This is really, really bad when your car is in Waubra, 30 km away from the garage in Ballarat you need to get it to. It’s even worse when you realise that it’s a Sunday and I’m meant to be in Ballarat playing D&D… Urgh.

Most of the players actually came out to my place instead, and so the next session of Thunderspire Labyrinth could go ahead. It was really nice to have Ben and his fiance Lily at the session… but I wish it had gone better. It was ok, I guess, but I was getting more and more distracted with worry about my car as the game went on which meant that I wasn’t enjoying it (or making it as enjoyable) for the others as it could be.

Lily also was stuck, as a new player, with playing a halfling rogue. That was fine. What wasn’t fine was the amount of tactical knowledge you really need to play a rogue effectively in combat… and there was too much combat and not enough exploration IMO. It’s one of the weakest points of the H modules so far: there isn’t enough to explore, it’s just big challenge after big challenge. 

In old-style D&D (especially AD&D), there’s a much lesser hurdle for a new player to assimilate before they can play the game. With combat being basically “I hit them”, and out of combat being “can I do this?” it’s only the DM who really needs to know everything. The moving of responsibility from DM to player is a huge burden on teaching the game. I’d like to say that it makes the game better, but I’m not so sure that it does.

I want to be running some character-heavy games at present, but all the players who really focus on roleplaying seem to be arranging their lives so they can’t attend at present. We did manage some good roleplaying in the Friday sessions (don’t you love it when the group negotiates its way past a group of goblins rather than fights them?), but Sunday’s session wasn’t like that. I need to start looking past the written word in H2, I think. Splug was amusing, though, as he begged to be not left behind (as Lily’s halfling made him redundant), and Adam and Nate convinced him that he needed to Guard The Inn, which he eventually took up with all the passion that only Splug can display.

Fortnightly play may well be interfering as well. Hmm. Does a weekly campaign help continuity and immersion?

The car is repaired, but I’m still not 100% sure of the future of my roleplaying at present. Boardgames are going very well – Through the Ages arrived, Rails of Europe is on its way, and Dominion can’t be far behind. However, roleplaying has been such a part of my life, that having a rocky patch unsettles me significantly.