Shameless Plugs and Rambling

So, I've been mentioned on a podcast, which is cool.  Eric (one of my players who I haven't played with yet and hopefully will this coming Friday) has a podcast called Two Nerds with his roommate and friend, and Brandie (his wife and another one of my players who I haven't played with yet and will this coming Friday) guest stars on it.  Here's the link to the episode where they talk about their first impressions of 5th Edition and mention my game and blog.  Here's another link to their newest blog about D&D edition wars which is fun because they actually like and have played 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition D&D and have played all of them a lot and have good opinions based on actual play.  Anyways, shameless plug aside, they're cool, and I look forward to the second actual session of my game which will hopefully be this coming Friday.

I'm mostly blogging, because last week all my carefully-planned-for-maximum-plot-and-fun plot went completely pear shaped.  In retrospect, I should have figured.  I haven't seen a plot go well in a sandbox-ish game in pretty much forever.  Also, my best friend, Caelin, is too much like me to let anybody get on a plot train (and I literally had a plot train that she got people off of) despite the fact that I thought since she was new I'd be able to pull it over on her.  I was wrong, I admit it, I wasn't super attached to my plot, and now have retooled things now that I know how my players are motivated.

When you literally have 2/3 of your players just say "nope" to your plot...

In the past week or so, Caelin and Aaron have both been talking D&D with me quite a bit.  Both have been bitten by the D&D bug.  Aaron has been writing extensive backstory for Dagarkin, his Hill Dwarf Paladin, and has been thinking about how all the items in his packs came into his possession.  He's even given the random trinket he rolled (a pair of bone dice with skulls on the 6 face) a full on backstory and tied a young, Half Elf, Cleric NPC into his backstory.  Aaron is the player who is easy to hook in, because he's excited about the narrative, is a team player, and has already provided my (unknowingly) with story hooks to keep him with the party.  Caelin has been saying that she is excited about having adventures, and, after briefly talking to her about some aspects of the campaign world, she is super excited about visiting a certain location involving a lot of magic and bees that may or may not be a "vacation" destination for the party. She seems to be motivated by seeing and getting neat stuff.  As long as she gets to see and get neat stuff, I think she'll be easy to keep on track.

Tracy is the one I'm having a hard time pinning down.  She's the player I know the least, the quietest player, but also the one who has had the most out of the box thinking thus far.  Tracy at least has the shining grace of going (mostly) with the flow.  Of course, I also am going to have Brandie and Eric playing for the first time with us this coming Friday, meaning I have to get a good grasp on their play styles, because I've never played with either of them before.  That's the blessing and curse of playing with an all new group; I have fresh perspective, but I also have no clue what exactly makes them all tick.  I do have fun plot ideas to tie Eric, Aaron, and Caelin's characters together, and Brandie's Gnome Rogue will likely fit spectacularly into the running chaos that is Caelin and Tracy.