Our FLGS currently has more players than it can find DM’s for, and with a few of them having kids or being called away for work issues, my husband decided to offer his help. So he’s taking over one of the tables, and I am running a character in his game.
Considering the last few games I ran gave me a bad taste in my mouth, I opted out on DM duties when the FLGS was asking but agreed that, in emergency scenarios, I could be a “back-up DM” for my husband, who I help with world-genning and such anyway. Although both of us have been playing for years – my husband since he was in high school – we have a secondary back up DM.
It ended up with me getting to try out a few relatively new things all at once. I have never played D&D in a mall, and I have never played a 5E character before. It was interesting.
The character I, having previously come from a group of power gamers intent on making the most powerful things they could think of, generated a sub-optimized and counterintuitive quirk of a character – a Wood Elf Barbarian based on Dexterity weapons. I decided this character, Del Siannondel, was not a full “adult” yet (Elves reach physical maturity rather quickly but choose an adult name for themselves around the age of 100) and had been tasked by her Wardancing Master to go out and learn about the world and its people until she was confident that she was ready to choose her adult name. As opposed to the typical Barbarian, I wanted her to portray a cold, calculating rage since she would dissociate her “personal self” from her “warrior self” through something similar to the Warhammer 40k concept of the Eldar Warmask.
Besides her backstory, I wrote up short snippets about Del’s parents, her brother, her Wardancing master Meliniel, and her betrothed Riardon before I was content that she was fully fleshed out. Amusingly, when our massive eight person group sat down, I learned that, besides my husband, myself, and our emergency backup DM (who would otherwise just be a player in our group), every other person very little roleplaying experience.
Overall, everyone seemed just fine, and I was surprised to notice that we had 4 ladies and 3 guys. I am used to being either the only or one of two, so that is quite refreshing. I ended up digging through books quite a bit since I have a decent working knowledge of the rules, but I am used to that. The mall was surprisingly a functional venue, apart from us having limited table space for our oversized party and a few stray people grilling us before our time to generate characters really started.
Hopefully I can deal with not being in the driver’s seat for once.