Your First Time

you tried to use your lute as a bow? are you retarded?
that still doesn't justify free party infighting

>everyone arrives with half done character sheets.
>everybody had a PDF of the PHB but nobody really read it anyways
>only one with actual experience playing is the DM
>we spend half the time finishing our characters
>we are 3 guys and 1 girl. the girl, me and my friend are the players.
>girl is playing a gnome rogue
>friend is playing a dragon born druid
>i'm playing a half elf sorcerer
>druid has to leave because it's already late for him and we haven't even started
>he finishes his character and leaves
>gnome and i end up playing without him
>i get my ass handed to me by some bandits because i thought a lvl 1 sorcerer was some kind of demi god instead the sissy with a wand i was
>gnome tried to negotiate with bandits using the thieves cant
>she got stabbed
>DM has to pull out a lvl 9 wizard out of his ass to save us
>end the session by blowing up an assassin that came to kill me in my sleep
then we played a couple sessions more until the druid dropped out of the game because "it's too much of a pain to take time out of his day to play"

>bard
>asking if he's retarded

Group infighting is really common for newer groups. It's usually because they want to make a running gag, or have some personal vendetta against the guy.

As long as everyone is having fun, you're on the right track.

Keep an eye on your players' and your own feelings of the game. If something starts chafing, try to find the reason for it and fix it. Honestly, as long as that is accounted for, it's all good.

>Arrive to session late because everyone's schedules were really conflicted, but had discussed character backstories previously so I was already "in" the party
>Ask what's going on
>"There's a brawl in the streets as one barfight spilled out into other bars and it became like an infection, spreading to numerous other bars until there was a riot in the streets."
>What
>"Your mentor is in that bar over there, he usually goes there."
>See the party
>A Komodo Dragon Bouncer kinda character, a Bear Blacksmith (my mentor), a Raven Death Cleric, and a young rat were cornering a bunch of badgers with flintlocks in the basement, I never really figured out why
>Bouncer thinks his high AC means he's bulletproof
>Nigga ain't bulletproof
>Laugh about it
>Curb stomp the shit out of the badgers just fine, I personally Ornstein my way over to the fight by flying over everything to get a jab in
>We poke fun at the guy for the rest of the campaign that the first thing this tough fuck did was get shot
The bear and komodo dragon player were constantly on their phones a lot and probably didn't know the rules very much but were fun characters. Campaign crashed when the semester was reaching its end and finals demanded our attention.

First time.
>Playing with premade characters in some crappy box set.
>Only two players + DM so each player has two characters
>I get fighter and cleric
>First encounter, first enemy, orc with warhammer
>Crits my fighter
>DM rolls on crit table and says I took a nutshot and am stunned for two turns
>Orc bashes my stunned character in the head and takes him to -2HP
>Roll 4 on death save
>I say he's going to be fine, and heal our wizard who got banged up real bad.
>Fighter rolls 7 on his death save
>Move cleric back to save him, but warhammer orc is now in the way
>Fighter rolls 5 on his death save and bleeds out from a nut injury.
>Two encounters later, my cleric is desperately whacking zombies with a blunt weapon and doing barely any damage.
It was a good first day.

satisfying

I had a bowharp once. Composit bow with 4 harpstrings strung b/w the string and the haft, i ripped chords on each shot, it was fun. wasn't trying to shoot a lute tho

>3.5 campaign with takked on LOTR theme...
>we are a 'backup' fellowship sent to mop up if the real one fails
>GM insists on 9 player characters but we only have 4 people counting GM
>rolls all of our characters, but doesn't finish any of them (just ability scores and weapons)
>None of us have played before, he never explains anything, i'm running 3 characters
>don't have books, don't even know what i'd buy, was not about to invest anything
>every combat is me asking what i can do, him saying, roll a d20 and i'll tell you what happens
>3 sessions of this and i bail
>Didn't play again for 2 years

Nah. I had a blast with some guys from gamefinder. The game didn't last for more than a few sessions, but it was fun.

>group of people who have never played anything more than shitty forum freeform
>dm is avid fan of world of warcraft (I've never played)
>this was also freeform since the DM just said "roll a d20 to do the thing" and if your class/race was good at it + good number you did thing
>if you could explain that you should be able to do the thing well enough, you did it
>I was a skeleton lich fighter/mage
>that could reform at will
>with armor that gives me immunity to bludgeoning
>with the full power of both classes
>was OP
>another guy was a yeti barbarian with some ice related spells, probably the closest to being balanced
>another guy was a dark elf necromancer, who was limited entirely to spells listed as "necromancy" so he was weak as fuck yet saturday morning cartoon-tier evil so he would constantly come up with a scheme and fail hilariously
>dm had a dmpc ranger/warlock thing which was as strong as the dm wanted

>we get into a lot of shenanigans, including my skeleton dude standing at the mouth of an alleyway going "THERE IS NOTHING SUSPICIOUS GOING ON BACK HERE AT ALL!" as the necromancer is killing and reanimating a hooker in the alleyway

>necromancer once tried to climb a castle wall because he heard music at the top
>he predictably falls
>skeleman catches him
>"Ah, than-"
>skelemans arms snap off and necromancer falls on his ass

It was fun until we got a new that guy paladin that took away all our ability to shenanigan around, especially since the DM liked his dumb ass

Group fizzled out after that and I recruited the remnants into my own group with actual rules

>4e
>talk to an MtG friend about D&D
>introduces me to group
>make a rogue, backstory is that he's a merchant and will use any money he gets to fund his business
>there's never any roleplay
>DM doesn't understand the sneak attack rules, I can never do any damage
>don't argue, talk to him respectfully after the game and ask to double check the page with him
>his face gets visibly red, refuses to continue talking
>one of his friends shows up next session, plays a drow assassin
>the group has been bullying the friend that invited me this whole time
>while everyone is sleeping he kills my friend's character
>we're not allowed to wake up
>the drow guy then drops the game next week
>one session I finally manage to get the awful DMPC XD randumb gnome to have a reason to leave the party
>DM is clearly upset over this
>some orphan kid cuts my purse, says I've lost 95% of my gold
>tell him that there's no way I could carry thousands of GP on me, and that I sent it all to my bushiness every session
>eventually surrounds my character with 'elite assassins' that popped out from literally nowhere
>he claims this was a joke
>at the end of the session says that "Anyone who has a problem with the way he GMs shouldn't come back."
Best thing he ever said.

>couple of friends
>three of us drop out
>the rest of us are still playing
???

My first time was with a crazy dm who seemed like he lived in his car or either that, or his place was an utter mess. Just totally dishovled. The two other players were... average table top people. They were of a similar are but knew the mechanics. All in all, pretty positive

>buy DH 2E book
>finally gather friends
>make a surprisingly varied party, a priest, an arbite, an outcast
> they talkin, doing competent shit
>hey look several fails
>proceed to be bathed in blood killing entire private security force
>cops show up after confronting noble
They managed to fucking negotiate out of it even after I made it tricky
>ordered pizza and shit
A good day, love that group.

yes, I experienced it as well (we were about 10 when we started though)
I'm just glad those times are over

My first time was on a play by post forum, where I decided to play pic related.

I got better.

>And for some reason, as soon as we started the game, everyone kept trying to kill me.
Perhaps it was because you were playing a squash and stretch toon in a realistic setting and they wanted to kill the unholy abomination?

>Join Pathfinder game
>Roll barbarian muscle girl
>Have fun smashing things
>Leave for two months because of family matters
>Come back
>Ask if I can join up again
>No user you can't
>the "new girl," a friend of one of the other players that got brought in after the campaign started threw a bitch fit about me
>Kicked from first Pathfinder game
>Still on a streak of no games getting past the level 7 mark

Pic related, was temporary character art

>Spend week creating character concept
>We all get together, roll stats and introduce our characters
>I'm an ex guard fighter who supports his wife and child through mercenary work
>Player 2 is a gnome ranger who cuts off the dicks of everything he kills and keeps them in a box
>Player 3 is a goliath barbarian who has no personality beyond ME SMASH

>everyone new except DM
>me, roll a super generic Dwarf Fighter
>Half-Orc Monk, roleplays well but tries to get away with a lot of crazy shit
>Halfling Rogue stealing everything not nailed down
>Dragonborn Warlock, minmaxing powergamer who does zero roleplaying
>Elf Wizard, DMs gf who does not give a fuck about D&D

We all still play together except DMs gf

>ask if he can join a pathfinder campaign
>no, user
You dodged a bullet there.

I was already in the game, I just had to leave it temporarily. But then I got kicked

Besides I was enjoying myself and that's what really matters

>"Yeah, skipping your turn"
That'll teach you to try and correct your GM. He's in charge and you should be grateful.

I think he's using the word couple in place of the word few or several, which I still often do myself. Took me years before I made the connection of "a couple of" means "a pair of" instead of being "a few of."