Is D&D fun? I'm thinking about getting into it.

[self biased]

my wife would play with us, but the game is far too geopolitical for her tastes. it's not sword-and-sorcery type... it's rather mundane and low-magic, mostly to keep the players from thinking too laterally.

[Theben]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
I know some hot chicks who play D&D.

Their female characters roam inns, looking for handsome knights, buying them drinks, and ****ing them.

Arrgh, you just reminded me of someone from long ago who had the hots for me, yet I was too naive at the time to realize it. She had some very nice curves... *sigh*

[Lord Avalon]

Back in my college days, a friend from D&D had some younger friends from high school he had played D&D with (2nd edition days). When they joined us, we looked over their character sheets and found they were Christmas trees - their DM ran a real Monty Haul campaign. They had tons of magic items, and everyone had gloves of strength 18/99 (usable by any class, of course). I was looking over the paladin's sheet - Holy Avenger, natch, helmet (forget the name) with many different powers, tons of potions, scrolls and stuff. I said, "Hey, aren't paladins limited to a certain number of magic items?" He said he was carrying all those items "for the party." Our DM said, "Let me see that," and proceded to cull the list. Another guy had a chaotic neutral thief. Seemed to me that didn't go with a paladin.

The last guy had a halfling "quick fighter" (didn't like being called a thief) who was carrying just about every miscellaneous item in the book: spikes, rope, lantern, flasks of oil. And a 10-foot pole. It boggled the mind. "How are you carrying all that?" His modus operandi when approaching a door was to probe ahead with the pole, then check for traps. But when it came time to open the door, suddenly he was in the back, saying, "I shoot two arrows." "You were just up front! When did you have time to get to the back?!"

"...and I shoot two arrows" became a running joke.

[Dry]

L.A. story reminds me one of the most frustrating time of my D&D player life.
I usually was the DM and it seems I had the reputation of being a hard, challenging one. Players had to play as a real team to survive. That was indeed how I saw the game: team work, survival; no place for CE characters, they would endanger the whole group. Treasure had to be earned the hard way. Each magical item my group collected had a story of blood and sweat and was precious to the players. Every player had at least one story of how he survived in this or that dungeon, for hours with only 2hp left.
Then, one day, we wanted to change a bit and one of the players asked to be DM for a while.
Oh my! It was like: 2 kobolds guarding the treasure of a dragon. Not that we got that many items, but we got really unique ones. My elf character left the dungeon with a +3 bow!!!
Then came the turn of another player... The exact opposite of the first one. I think it is the only dungeon in which players had less items when they left than when they came. We violated the tomb of some semi-god (my character was the only one to oppose this idea) and the angry godly dude demanded each of us to leave our most precious item... my +3 bow was gone.
I had it for less than half an adventure...

Hard earned magical items
Take back items from the players

[Dry]

oops, double post

[Dry]

Originally posted by Felch
D&D is more of a tactical game than some of the others out there, but that traces back to its roots if you think about it. It has always emphasized the combat aspects of things more than anything else (at least in core rules). Personally I think it's fun, and if you have interesting tactical challenges, it's a very deep game with a lot of variety.

As I said in previous post, when we played, we didn't play absolutely tactical, but we played team.
D&D for us was team spirit.
In D&D, a fighter alone is dead, a MU alone is dead. The group survives because it is composed of all the different classes. And that is the spirit: we are all different, and we all need each other.
That is how I DM-ed my dungeons. The emphasis I put was on team spirit. Nobody could survive my adventures without being a part of the team.

We stopped playing D&D for years, and lately I was invited to join a game with new generation players.
OMG!
The first one had extraordinary characteristics. Something like a 17, two 16 worst roll was a 10. So, he made some elf thief character... with 8 in constitution. The kind of CN coward a-hole, shooting from distance, afraid to be injured. Well, quite understandable as he had only 12 hp at level 4 or so. Yeah, why not? Great role-playing ahead... but if you ask me: playing the chicken dude with a natural 17, two 16s and a few 14s... Anyway, his choice.
The second one, found it funny to play a tree-hugging druid. Leather armor, armed with... a sickle - how many of you have ever found a +1 sickle? - With little interest in human activities... And an eagle as pet. Yeah, right, who would want a bear as pet when you explore caves. Role playing, sir, role playing!
The last one had just plain average dice roll. Only one 17 to save the day... and because she came last, she had to play that paladin class that the DM required. So, the 17 went to charisma, the 14 to wisdom and a glorious 13 to strength and the 11 to constitution.
Yeah, great role playing ahead too!
Later, a forth player joined them: a sorcerer. Well, this one was ok, but the hell, hadn't the party any need for a second fighter? or a real cleric?

That group was probably good at role playing. The thief, the druid and the sorcerer were competing on who was the greatest chicken of all. And if the paladin was not doing the same, it was not because she didn't try, but because the DM would not allow.
That is no team! That's a bunch of individuals who happen to travel together, but that's not a group. They would have stand no chance in my dungeon. Lucky their DM threw them no more than 4 kobolds at a time. And the great challenge was 1 bugbear.
Come on, role playing is ok, but I do not see fun when your greatest achievement is: the 4 of us managed to kill one bugbear at level 4.

[Alinestra Covelia]

The first game I played in 3rd Ed., I played as a sorceror who had a toad as a familiar. (Although it was changed to a chameleon, it had the same stats.)

His bonus hp, combined with the fact that he kept on rolling max hit points, meant that at level 3 he had about 21 hit points and was inadvertently the party's tank.

[DarkCloud]

His bonus hp, combined with the fact that he kept on rolling max hit points, meant that at level 3 he had about 21 hit points and was inadvertently the party's tank

...Your group's fighter and barbarian must have been doing something wrong then. In my groups, they constantly have HP at or in the 20s at level 2.

I however, generally have the frail 7 hp creatures.
--
LA- Did you at least get the experience?

- In a 5 dice roll streak, I managed to roll a : 1, 3, 15, 1, 1... it was wretched. Especially since we used critical failures. On the first one, I dropped my weapon, then I got knocked to the ground and grappled, I got out of the grapple and picked up my weapon, dropped it again, then got knocked back to the ground and grappled again.

Thankfully, an ally came to save me before I was coup de graced.
--
Dry - an eagle as a pet is a great idea. The Druid obviously should have pushed for outdoor adventures. It sounds more like the DM wasn't challenging the players more than anything else... and why would the DM require a Paladin? Storyline reasons?

It's much more fair to do point buy than rolling. When I'm DMing, that's all I allow- too many players either cheat (if they can roll on their own), or get highly lucky/unlucky when they roll in front of you. Equality is best.

Trust me though, you can have a good game with substandard characters if you play at a little higher levels (level 1-3 are never fun to start at). ... but you'll probably die a lot. The most ridiculous group I had was a :

Changeling Rogue 4 (Useless...no really, I actually harmed the group more often than I helped. I threw a thunderstone, missed my throw and ended up deafening both magic users. Then I threw a tanglefoot bag, missed, and entangled the fighter... in the same battle.)
Human Artificer 4 (Our healer/ magic user)
Munchkinny Race Swordsage 4 (our magic user/fighter)

The Swordsage could do 30-50 points of damage in one round. My max was 16 or so, the artificer was 12.

The artificer was reduced to -5 hit points 3 times in 3 sessions and was turned to stone once, I (as the Rogue) suffered the negative hitpoints indignity twice, and the Swordsage was turned to stone once.

Still, we had a good time. (*$$$ basilisks...)

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by DarkCloud

LA- Did you at least get the experience?

Yes.

Speaking of eagles, and this is OT, but we were playing Gamma World, and one of my friends wanted to be an eagle. And he got the mutation chlorophyll, enabling him to feed off sunlight - so he was a green eagle. Almost useless indoors. But we were exploring a bunker, got ambushed, and he took a disruptor hit which killed him outright. *PAF!* Green feathers everywhere.

[DarkCloud]

Aiya (!)

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Dry
That group was probably good at role playing. The thief, the druid and the sorcerer were competing on who was the greatest chicken of all. And if the paladin was not doing the same, it was not because she didn't try, but because the DM would not allow.
That is no team! That's a bunch of individuals who happen to travel together, but that's not a group. They would have stand no chance in my dungeon. Lucky their DM threw them no more than 4 kobolds at a time. And the great challenge was 1 bugbear.
Come on, role playing is ok, but I do not see fun when your greatest achievement is: the 4 of us managed to kill one bugbear at level 4.

That sounds like my kind of game. Great potential for humour and the DM should always design for the group he has, or make sure that when they are generating the group they have everything they are going to need, or introduce strategicly placed NPCs to help the group out. Some of the best moments I've played in RPGs were when trying to avoid fights.