So, D&D Adventurers League, this weekend for San Diego Comic Con, done virtually.
First and foremost, they welcome people brand new to D&D – which I think is wonderful. I love introducing people to D&D and new folks exploring their creativity. So games were slow to start, but that wasn’t a problem for me. But I wanted to talk about some of the games I was in.
I made a Dragonborn (Blue), because I love Blue Dragons in D&D. I made it so he was once evil, but now seeking to redeem his past sins. This is what I wrote for my character:
Karillium (Ka-rill-e-um) is who I will be playing today! He's a Dragonborn of Blue Dragonkin. He began his career as a soldier for an army of evil, but as time passed, grew a conscious. Now he seeks to make amends for some of the horrors he's been a part of and set things right. He, however, still has his arrogant dragon bloodline that sometimes gets the best of him, especially when he's frustrated with those who don't recognize his power. (Shh! Don't tell him he's not all that powerful at Level 1!)
While he dislikes his past, he may bring it up from time to time, about how they were able to conquer enemies.
He understands that he's not immediately trusted, because of the Blue Dragon Blood the courses through his veins.
So I played a Friday evening game (7:30pm to 11pm) – and in that group was another Dragonborn (Gold) who was a Sorcerer – he and I got to talking about how our characters outwardly despise one another (Blue being evil, gold being good among dragons) – but that, deep down inside we actually respected one another. There was another guy in there who played an impetuous fighter (Darien?) who was hilarious and another person who played a cleric – and the DM (Dave) was great. Kept the story moving, let us RP, rewarded us with RP (like twice the Dragonborn Gold went down and I mentioned how my character became engaged – not Raged, since he’s not a barbarian – and both times, I managed to land like 19s and 20s when this happened, and one time killed the wolf that dropped the Gold Dragonborn, which the DM always did “How do you kill it” – and I always mentioned how I let the blood spill on the Dragonborn (Gold) – but was the first one to extend a hand to help him up. This session was an absolute blast.
Saturday, I only got to do a morning game, due to an evening engagement that was sprung on me two days before (was supposed to do the live D&D Session at Anita’s house, with Jessica… but… I won’t dwell on that…) The Saturday AM game was good. The DM, a very nice woman, was having all kinds of issues with Fantasy Ground Unity (tokens gets stuck, shared images not appearing). That aside, I do feel like the game might have been cursed over all; all the players, I feel like were like the cast of the Three Stooges, we were running around in circles, bonking each other in the head (not literally, but just couldn’t figure things out as to what we were doing for the adventure). And this was maybe because of the FG Unity issues, or we were just all scatter brained (I include myself). In this game, there was a UK woman (who I remembered from last year – very distinct voice) – and when I heard it, I was filled with dread. Last year, she’d been scolded by the DM to stop talking over people. She was one of those “I do everything” (so for example, if I found a map, she’d say, “I look at the map and follow it”). This year, she was remarkably better (still did it but was far more controlled). The problem was the other woman who played a male Warforged Bard that she called a “Sex Bot.” She insisted on making everything sexual (such as her rapier was between her legs). And even worse, she’d say, “Shall we engage in intercourse” (like a robot, slow between words). And when she did things like Vicious Mockery, they were all sexual references; which … might be fine, if she was good at it. But she was like, “I cast Vicious mockery and I say…” (30 seconds later) “My sword between my legs is bigger than your penis!”
I just shut her out and tried to enjoy the rest of the game. And that wasn’t even my worse game. The worse is yet to come.
My Sunday AM game, was with DM Dave (from Friday evening) – and it also had the Dragonborn (Gold) and the impetuous fighter and two other people. This session, just like Friday’s was an absolute blast. People got into me and the other Dragonborn’s “feud” with one another. And even the UK girl (who had been scolded last year and was in my Saturday game) was in this game – and when the Dragonborn (Gold) and I talked about “Mortals” I often scoffed (in character), so the UK girl said her character refuses to heal me because of how he talks (and she did it in character, she told me, she thinks it’s great what I was doing). So that was a lot of fun; and she stuck to it, even when I went down, she didn’t heal me (but we had a Twilight Cleric with us, so I was all good). Really enjoyed this session.
Because it was Sunday, there was no late session – just the 2:30 to 6:30.
But wait? I said before the worse was yet to come.
Here it is.
The DM’s name is Tom (you’d think I’d be happy with that) – and he sounded as if he might be from the UK. He had the most MONOTONE voice ever.
Adventure starts; we need to enter a cave, but it has two savings throws – a CON and CHR. Three of the six people try to enter and fail – and my character, who has a flaw about his arrogance and power decides to enter – and passes both saves.
Suddenly, it’s just me and the DM enacting this vision. At first, it’s fine. But it’s dragging on. Literally ten minutes of me and the DM and I am trying to bring down a white dragon by cutting its wings as quickly as I can because it’s getting awkward.
Here’s what two players said in Discord:
[3:24 PM] (Remove_Name) (UTC -7) (he/him): sorry to be critical, but this encounter is basically the DM plus 1 player playing D&D, and the other 4 players get to sit around and watch. not a great encounter, IMO.
[3:25 PM] (Remove_Name2): I'm not one to trash on creative design, but yeah...this isn't fun.
So I bring this up to the DM, because maybe he doesn’t see it and not picking up on how awkward it’s getting for me. But he keeps it going for about another 10 minutes; by this time, I already want to crawl out of this game.
Well, the rest of the campaign – I kid you not, there was zero combat. Which, OK – sometimes that works. I’ve done that both in my work game and my Off Week Work Game where there’s been zero combat – but that’s because the Roleplaying takes place of the combat. That wasn’t the case here. The DM led us, with his finger up our noses – pulling us along (rather than pulling us by our ears, I wanted to express a more uncomfortable feeling) – through the module, as if we’re characters in a story, rather than us interacting with the story. We make occasional skill rolls, come to an inhospitable town, and right about then it was 6pm (which I had a game with Anita) and said, “Hey, I got to drop for a previous engagement.”
This was one of the worse D&D games, in my memory, that I’d even been a part of. And it wasn’t because of offensive/dumb players. It was the DM who made this an absolute train wreck. He definitely missed social queues, because when we took a break, he said, “You guys having fun?” Not a single person said anything. Not yes or a no.
18 NPCs trying to win a date. Narrowing it down to 7, then 3. No wonder someone compared this to a dating game show.
Intriguing. If they set all the monsters free, that wouldn't be good at all - a troll, a rust golem, a manticore - they would probably destroy the village. (Not to mention the Red Dragon) 
Sorry the weekend was a bit of a bust for you, Tawm. At least you got one good game.