First Time Player Stories

Tell the story of your first time playing an RPG.

Can be your story of how you got into RPGs, or your first time playing in a new system.

I'll start.
So I joined my group about a year ago, and we've mostly been playing Dark Heresy since I've joined. Never played a pen and paper RPG outside of it, despite trying in other groups, just nothing ever came together.

Another group member, who has been playing RPGs longer than I've been alive, decides to start up his D&D campaign. This game will take place in the Points of Light setting, two years after he ended his last campaign, and the two members of our game group that are around will pick up their characters, but the rest of us will need to start from scratch.

In order to give us a crash course in the game and push us up to the party level (3-4), he decides to run us new people through a gauntlet. I hop on and make my character, a Human Fighter (Calian). The rest of the party consists of a Half Elf Battlemind (Mikael), an Eladrin Avenger (Adlai), a Half Elf Bard(Cress), and a Human Wizard (Ayzel).

Now, this gauntlet went for four sessions, and was quite possibly one of the hardest games I've played.

Session One
Our party is recruited piecemeal around the village and told to meet in a tavern (Pretty Vanilla Start). We found ourselves hired by a Human Wizard named Traxis and his second, a Dragonborn Fighter named Abraxis. They told us of a legendary Eladrin City that appears from the Feywild once every ten years. The City, or the Ruins, are abandoned, and should be rife with powerful artifacts and treasures. Should we be successful in our excavation (Read: Looting) of this ancient ruin, we will have enough gold to set ourselves up forever.

Contd.

We all end up agreeing to work as security, and the next day we hop in a caravan with a group of mercenaries and get on our way there. As the day goes on, we stop to water the horses, and there's something weird about the ground, like someone's been running a hoe through the dirt all willy nilly. As we refill our waterskins, socialize a bit, maybe grab a bite to eat, the ground seems to quake beneath us. Suddenly, an entire carriage is crushed by a blur of motion, and the horses dragged into a large pit.

Now, I'm wigging out because I didn't sign up for this shit. Eventually we figure out it's a Land Shark, and when Adlai throws his canteen at it, its hatred of water. Now, we're hitting this thing as hard as we can, but we're just dinging off its hide. Its pretty much shaking us off and trying to eat the horses/destroy the caravan. We decide to try and distract it by using spells and letting the caravan get away. This is going great... At least until Ayzel fucks up a spell and casts a noise spell meant to intimidate ten horses on herself. The bullet jumps on her and is eventually saved by the rest of the party. Me, being kind of a dick bag, just hopped on the caravan and left with the guy that was paying me.

We decide to end our first session when we see the gates within our view. Night has fallen, and we need to be in and out by the time the sun rises, or else we will be trapped in the city until it decides to reappear.

It was pretty basic. None of my friends had played before, so we went to the store and bought all of the 4e stuff.

Then we went home, read a tiny bit, and played a 1 hour long session. I DM'd.

Playing an intro, first time to DnD one-off adventure at a "learn to DnD" type event. All characters are premade, we just pick classes. End up with a ranger, a thief, a druid, and me, a paladin. I'm the only one with any healing ability, and no one wanted to play a cleric. Also I'm the only melee character. The DM is canning himself in between trying to convince one of us to take a cleric and another to take fighter or something. Story:
>villagers are super scared, figure out what's going on!
>wolves have been attacking every night
>half village is dead, more wolves every night
>all the warriors are dead, they can't hold out on their own anymore
>please brave heroes help us!

So we get forced into our first quest.

>almost nightfall
>hole up all surviving villagers in the tavern
>have ranger put beartraps and shit by the door
>barred all the lower story windows, but left door open to lure wolves in
>Villagers hide in cellar
>ranger goes upstairs to shoot at wolves
>druid, rogue, and I stay downstairs to kill any wolves that make it past the traps.

The DM is telling us that in all honesty we will probably all die due to lack of a proper healer and little melee tanks. But we ignore him.

>wolves attack!
>I'm standing to the side of the door, and I roll a string of 15+'s for each wolf that comes in, killing every single one as they come through the door, without any of the other party members getting a shot in.

DM is kinda flabbergasted, I've just killed like 6 wolves in one hit each without even having to dodge an attack.

>You hear a loud crash on the level above!
>Werewolf has smashed through an upper story window right next to the ranger
>manages to swipe away half the ranger's HP with his claws
>ranger misses all his attacks
>sprint upstairs, I get there first
>Suspecting werewolves, I'd previously smashed a silver candlestick with my warhammer until the thing was jammed onto the end of my hammer
>nat 20, ohko werewolf

Me and my 13 year old friend started playing Dnd 3.5 because he knew how to play.. sorta

>Be us, lvl 1, a ranger with a pet weasel and Druid that got a pet snake later
>Go dungeon crawling (the plot was king said so)
>cleaving through the enemies like paper because it's fun
>mid boss is a bugbear
>weasel manages to crawl down it's throat while we hold it's mouth open
>no more bugbear
>keep going deeper, keep killing shit and leveling up pretty fast
>Druid gets his snake, names it Snakey
>Boss door and puzzle, solved in 3 hours
>inside room is a baby black dragon just chillin
>well fuck, arrows away!
>we miss every shot
>I mean everything, every attack made by the PC's just straight up missed (he later told me he kept lowing the AC and we still) or crit failed
>It's ok because the dragon missed everything too
>But not the snake and weasel
>about 30 turns of flailing later the dragon finally succumbs to the weasel latched to it's neck
>we are then killed by a cave in

Now i always take a weasel as my pet when i play Ranger. In honor of Wesley and Snakey and their heroism.

This is the story of Bear, though not my first game my first truly entertaining character, a sapient bear that hovered about 3 inches off the ground at all times and wore a party hat.

>Playing Abberant, make a PC that's literally just a super intelligent bear
>like mega int 5
>Also a bear
>A hovering party hat wear bear
>recruited by the directive because it kinda just showed up and tagged along with the PCs when they visited a park
>In all honesty he wanted to eat the fish guy
>doesn't matter, plot forced us into and encounter
>bear is pissed off because fish guy was insta gibbed by the enemy
>time to reveal my powers
>Use powers to open a portal to the NOPE zone
>Filled with eldrich abominations and tentecles
>one said tentecle finds the fuck who ruined my fish
>drags him back into the hole in time, never to be seen again
>enemy NPCs start to shot at bear
>into the void with you!
>PC are now absolutely terrified of bear for the rest of the campaign despite him being friendly to them

This rivals Sir Bearington for best bear imo.

Session Two
>Walk into the city, our boss seems to be impossible to keep track of.
>Brought his kids along.
>Find first door. Being the jagoff I am, I kick the door in
>Loot first room, and find the second door.
>Try to kick it in, but the party stops me, and the door turns out to be unlocked.
>Enter armory, and like the supremely intelligent character I am (calls all elves 'knife ears, and does not know the difference between pointy eared humanoids) I pull a glowing sword off the wall.
>Statues in the room come to life, and beat me half to death
>Several arduous rounds of combat later, we defeat the statues. Loot room, move on.
>Climb 200 feet up the tower, and come to one of the stone bridges.
>Start walking, our dumb asses trigger a bridge collapse.
>Me, Cress, and Ayzel fall, but I catch a rope, and the others catch me.
>Look around, where's Mikael?
>He went the other way, and is at the other side of the bridge.
>Fuck.
>Traxis happens to have a scroll that magics up a bridge for us to cross on
>Mikael seems to have poked the lock long enough to disable the magical door.
>Go inside, Library lit by glowing blue crystals, which we find out are Storm Gems
>Storm Gems are highly unstable and explosive.
>After the weirdest game of acrobatics, we grab two.
>Go up several floors and walk outside and come to another bridge.
>Hear noises on the wind.
>Look down, see figures attacking the caravan.
>What the fuck? This was supposed to be abandoned!
>Random 'shocked' faces.
>Something crawls up over the side of the bridge.
>Beetle/Spider about the size of a small dog.

DM Ends Session

Session Three: Fuckin Spiders
>ROOOOOOOOOOOOLL INITIATIVE
>More of the little fuckers pop up, and then ones the size of a man that look like man spider things. They're crawling up from the sides of the bridge.
>I'm in the front.
>Our backline (Mikael) decides to abandon the post and rush to the front.
>Spiders are pretty much always firing webs, so we are always slowed
>Adlai ports back to protect our boss and his kids
>We get into the most massive cluster fuck of a fight
>Imagine Mines of Moria, but with spider monsters
>Adlai figures out they used to be Drow.
>MORE KNIFE EARS
>The door behind us has a mighty slamming sound
>Something way bigger than anything we've seen so far pops up
>Adlai gets knocked off the bridge, falls.
>Battle continues, we have to get off the bridge.
>They keep coming. It's a never ending torrent of nightmare spiders
>Traxis ends up getting out a wand and it pops Adlai back up onto the far end of the bridge.
>Abraxis uses his dragon powers to draw the enemies upon him, tells us to run.
>Hop the fuck out
>Abraxis holds them all alone through a sheer combination of baller rolling and baller roleplay.
>Abraxis is struck down and is doomed to be eaten by spider monsters
>As we get the last of the group in, I take one of the storm gems from Traxis.
>With an oath on my lips I hail mary the gem at the spiders and slam the door.
>Vibrations shake the bridge, the door, and the tower itself. Blinding light streams under the door.
DM Ends Session

First time playing D&D 5th edition. I went to game store filled with elitist fucks. If you weren't apart of their clique you were shunned, but since this was an organized play event I had to included.
I did let my DM know I had gamed before.
This is the story of McHammer.

>Group is hired to escort carriage through forrest. Group is 2 rogues, 1 druid, and me a fighter.
>get to rendezvous to find goblins instead of carriage, but the goblins are quickly dispatched.
>follow tracks back to their hide out and kill 2 goblin guards waiting outside.
>everyone else has read the module and no one wants to go in. I have not and forge ahead to find a side room with some malnourished dogs that start growling so I toss them some dried meat rations and they quiet down.
>Druid says to kill them, and I say no they're my doggo bros now. I roll really high on my animal handling check and sure enough, doggos like me.
>What's this hidden pathway.jpeg?
>We're not supposed to go that way, we gotta go down the main tunnel.
>So I split from the party and climb up the hidden pathway, while everyone else goes up the main tunnel.
>I enter dark room and light up a torch to see a pile of treasure and oh shit that's the dungeon boss. A bugbear and a couple goblins.
>Bugbear charges me and misses because I have really high AC (hence McHammer; can't touch this).
>Shove bugbear down path, where he gets eaten by doggos. Easily dispatch a couple goblins waiting in the wings.
>Party shows up after fighting rest of dungeon to find no boss and no treasure, except for some potions I found.

So i was maybe twelve or thirteen and my buddy kept harping on me to play dnd with him and his older siblings. I wanted nothing to do with it. That shit was for pathetic nerds. I may have been a nerd, but i wasn't a pathetic one.

Anyway he wore me down, and i eventually agreed, but he made a mistake. See in wearing me down he'd been telling me all these stories about how awesome dnd could be, and how much freedom you had. One of the stories he told was Sir Bearington. He thought it was good. To be fair, we were young.

Well that story stuck with me for some reason, and when it came time to play since i had no idea what i was doing i just shoved everything into my ability to intimidate. I played a half orc, and min maxed like a retard. I woulda fallen down in a stiff breeze, but damn was i scary.

So since that's all i could do, that's all i did. I did nothing but roll intimidate checks for the next hour and a half until they finally gave up in exasperation. Guards? Intimidate. Shop keeper? Intimidate. More Guards? Better intimidate them. We've been attacked by Kobolds? Intimidate! (actually rolled my first nat twenty on that. Dm decided that i gave a Kobold a heart attack. Yeah i know, lul nat 20 xD is terrible. Again, we were young.)

The session ended with the monk tying me to a tree and the party leaving me to die. I didn't play dnd with them again for several years, but my friend was right. I did enjoy it.

I am currently running a few modules for people who are new to shadowrun. Among them is one player who is completly new to tabletop games in generel. It is also my first time playing with those guys, but I knew them for a while. I don't have a long, winded story so far but here are some highlights of their characters and chargen during the 2 sessions we had so far.

>No face-character. The elf decker is shoved into that role by default of having more than 2 charisma.
>Decker also has 18 armor and also acts as secondary streetsam
>The streetsam is just jacky chan with a metal arm and only has 2 initiative dice.
>the mage wears a dbz scouter and an electrochromatic fedora. Never throws spells out at high force, thus suffering from low damage output (despite having fun stuff like increase reflexes)
>the rigger is mechanicly the most competent one as the player followed a youtube guide on how to rig. However, I noticed 1 hour before gametime that he has 2 negative qualities tied to mutations (nocturnal and unusual hair). I allowed it.

cont.

Now that you know about some of their character stuff, let's move to their first session, food fight 5e.

>Rigger decides to stay outside with her drones in the van through most of the game but asks the group to order ''A number 9''.
>Decker gets them in through the metal detector and only slightly alarms GOD, then proceds to deck from the toilet, suprisingly competent.
>Sam and Mage eat their food, get slight stomach aches and procede to talk to their target, trying to intimidate him with their dicepool of 3 while sliping a gun bellow the table, aimed at targets balls.
>When the fight breaks out, the mage hurls a fireball into the kitchen, setting the whole building on fire
>Rigger brings 2 rotodrones and herself to the frontdoor, then almost decides to jump in one of them right infront of the security guard that was still standing there.
>After the fight, they argue for a minute if they should kill all civilians so that they leave no witnesses (shot down by me) but they still let the whole building burn down.

All in all not the most terrible new players to a system/setting/game. I'd let them join my other groups if I had space.

I'll post the final session tomorrow if the thread isn't deleted. It's 5am and I've lost most of my motor function at this point.

I have several bear characters based on Bearington. I even use the name because it's perfect. (though Bear is my own, created before i heard of Bearington.)

Frederick A Bearington was a notorious sky pirate that became the boss battle for a group of PC's. He won.

Ulysses B Bearington, his cousin, sent after him, grouped up with some other pirates to track him down, got sidetracked by King Koopa and becoming a dire bear. He's basically a prince because of this.

In fact, my friend and i are building a sky pirate world and an accompanying system and we decided super intelligent opposable thumb wielding bears would be good flavor. The Bearington are the current ruling family,

All of this inspired by sir Bearington and his mighty bluff.

My friend is using the 5e Storm King's Thunder book, but replacing all the Giants with Bears.

Demigod level bears that are larger than mountains. Bears riding bear cavalry. Hyper Intelligent Bears, etc.

Was camping at the beach with my cousin and he had these cool Macross RPG books. I had never played a P&P RPG before. So he help me make a character for a session. I was a hitman. My assignment was to kill some low-grade official or whatever.

It was 20 years ago, but all I really remember was that I came up with the convoluted plan to draw him into the open so I could kill him in some gruesome way. I believe I wanted to throw him into oncoming traffic or some shit.

My cousin was so amused and later told me I could have just set up a sniper rifle on the roof of the building across from where the guy lived and taken him out real easy.

But I was hooked and wanted to get into RPGs after that. My next foray was into Werewolf: Apocalypse.

Ho boy do I wanna post here, but I'm stuck on a shirty phone with autocorrect. Any chance this thread will still be up in five hours?

I hope so

My very first rpg was a 4th edition World of Darkness: Vampire the Requiem LARP.
I made a gunslinging gangrel with Protean 2 and resilience.
>I get home from the game, it's very late.
>Mom: So how was your game?
>Me: It was great! My character has a really cool power!
>Mom: What's that?
>I can turn into dirt!
>Mom: um...
>Me: I just realized that sounds really stupid, but trust me it's very useful.

I was lucky to find an excelent game group and that game has been running for over ten years now.
I have since been able to expand into other table top games and have always had fun, even amidst shit GMs and ThatGuys.

Neat!

There bears are the only ones who can use healing magic (the girzzlies), have a navy manned by Polar Bears (the ships are islands made of a floating stone, only the bears do this) , and worship the Great Dire Bears as physical gods. They are also pretty much hostile to anything considered wildlife if its on their massive sky island, and if they don't believe you are a bear (or of bear like status) you are wildlife.

Then there are the Bearzerkers, relics from the creation of the Ursus, called form by the mighty horn of Beardor (it summons a group of human barbarians sworn to the Great Bear; they are insane)

They have provided endless entertainment as a species.

The Story of McHammer continues...
A couple sessions and 1 dead necromancer later. (I had missed them due to work but then rejoined, so during that time my fighter just followed the others as a mindless automaton)
>We set up camp for the night, Druid keeps watch.
>DM rolls on random encounter table and Druid fails his perception check.
>A wild Owlbear appeared! It used Furry Swipes on Druid. Critical Hit! Druid fainted!
>The 2 rogues and I wake up to a scream and they run off.
>Guys we gotta help the druid!
>I hit the owlbear with my hammer, owlbear misses me, I hit it again, it misses me again (Can't touch this!), I hit, it finally gets me.
>I use second wind to regain some HP then smack it with a nat20! Hammer to the beak, cracking it and the owlbear finally dies.
>Rogues come back after danger is gone.
>I'm only level 2 and soloed a CR3 owlbear, I wanna take a trophy, but can't take it's head cause it's unrecognizable at this point.
>DM: Roll survival to skin its pelt.
>I roll a nat1.
>DM: As you skin it, you hit its musk sack and it sprays all over you. You are all able to get a full rest for the night and recover full hp, but you awake to mating calls of other nearby owlbears as He has attracted them.
>Next stop is a small Orc Fort we're supposed to clear out.
>We're prone at the top of a hill overlooking a grassy field and then the fort, scoping out what we're up against and how to get inside.
>I decide the best option is to lure out the Orcs so we don't get caught in the bottle neck of their open gate.
>I stand up and make an intimidate check to goad them out. Nat1.
>DM: You let out the strangled mating cry of an owlbear in heat. 4 Owlbears appear on the field. The orcs look at you and fall over laughing. Now if you like, you can take that back and come up with a plan with the other players.
>Me: Are you sure YOU don't want to take it back? (Party stares at me pleadingly.)
>DM: So be it. I'm not against a tpk. Roll initiative.

>Orcs go first, they continue laughing
>Rogues and Druid make stealth checks to run and hide.
>I charge between the owlbears and straight into the open gate of the fort.
>The owlbears follow, to find all of these prone orcs.
>Oh neat, there's a back door. I run out. The orcs and owlbears slaughter each other.
>One Orc makes it out the front door alive, where he is sniped by one of the rogues.
>The group's shocked faces were priceless.

I played Pathfinder, and was a thief. I told my DM I wanted to go "into stealth mode" like it was a video game. Like I thought suddenly I'd just disappear. Kind of embarrassing looking back at it, but my DM was pretty cool about it.

I did it about three times before I realized that was retarded and not how RPGs worked

Next Session and McHammer's final adventure.
We are joined by a new comer. Dude seems kinda shy and everyone is rude to him just as they were rude to me, so I tell him to stick with me and he'll have a good time. The group is level 4 now, but the DM insists that the new guy be level 1. New guy wants to play an Evocation wizard named Mr. Tibbles. Neat!
>Group finds an old run down fortress that's supposedly abandoned.
>We go in the side door just in case, and sure enough, we surprise some poor kobold doing his laundry.
>He runs into a side room to alert his buddies, and I follow him with the wizard. I block the doorway so the kobolds can't get out, while the wizard hurls firebolts from behind me.
>The druid and rogues run down the halls of the fortress forgetting their stealth checks and alert all the mean guard monsters. (owlbears and wolves among other things.)
>Oh no I haven't washed the musk off yet.
>the rogues and druid run back to find that we have killed the kobolds, bringing the other monsters with them.
>We hunker inside the room, to bottle neck them.
>Rogue A: (to me) Well, you're the tank of the group. Draw them away from us. (to DM) I move behind the fighter. (they have yet to be bothered to learn my name or my character's name.)
>Me: He provokes an attack of opportunity as he moves.
>DM: From what? All the monsters are over there.
>Me: From me. I use my AoO to shove him into the monsters. (I succeed, and he fails his Strength save.)
>The monsters use their turn to rip him to shreds.
>Mr. Tibbles casts burning hands. The Druid uses his Thorn whip cantrip forgetting that it pulls the target closer to him. I hit things on the head with my hammer.
>The Druid is mauled. Mr. Tibbles is mauled. Remaining Rogue is mauled. Finally, I too am mauled.
>DM: Alright, I'm going to give you guys one last chance if you succeed your death saves.
>We all succeed except for Rogue A and the Druid.

At least you learned, user.
I was the DM of this game.
Hopefully, they learned to respect 4e D&D: Prepare to Die Edition.

McHammer's final adventure Part 2.
>DM: you three wake up, tied up in a dungeon guarded by a bugbear. The dwarf whose carriage you were supposed to escort is prisoner here too. But all your equipment and armor is gone.
>DM: (to me) the bugbear is wearing your armor.
>Me: Perfect.
>DM: (to rogue) you remember the teleportation scroll from the necromancer? You pull that out of your butt, because your sleight of hand is so good. You and one other can teleport out.
(The DM had just made that up on the spot.)
>Me: I want to make a Strength check to break my bindings and stand up.
>DM: You succeed. You are standing up and the bugbear draws his weapon and heads to the door.
>Rogue B: We're free too right? We were all tied up together.
>Yes, but the dwarf merchant is tied separately. Do you do anything about the bugbear?
>Me: I make an Intimidate check. (nat20.)
>DM: Very well, what do you say?
>Me: He's wearing my armor right? (DM nods) I never washed off the owlbear musk.
>DM: Oh.
>Me: I let out the strangled cry of an owlbear in heat.
>DM: an owlbear bursts through the door, mauling the bugbear.
>Rogue B: I move toward the dwarf
>Me: He provokes an AoO and I will shove the rogue into the owlbear and bugbear.
>Rogue B: Damn it! What the hell dude? I try to move to the dwarf again.
>DM: Unfortunately, the owlbear attacks you and... (rolls a 20). Um. Sorry.
>Mr. Tibbles: Can I grab the scroll?
>DM: You may try a sleight of hand check... Sigh, you succeed (after he rolls a 15).
>Me: save the dwarf!
>Owlbear comes after me and mauls me to death, but Mr. Tibbles gets to the dwarf activates the scroll and they teleport to safety.

For completing a main story objective and escaping the fortress as the only surviving PC, Mr. Tibbles instantly gets to level 4.
The others were of course members of guilds the whole time! And the guilds pay to have them resurrected.
I decided to leave the campaign. So did Mr. Tibbles.
But we found a better group at a different store.

you did well. that is exactly what should happen to elitist fucks.

Thats story sounds suspiciously familiar, I think it's from one of the D&D or Pathfinder comics. The loot-city and the caravan is pretty much the same.

Fels five I think the comic was called.

>that feeling when a player may have discovered your master plan