I remember it well, I was sitting at home with nothing in particular to do when the phone rang. On the other end of the line was a good friend of mine that I went to school with and had been a member of both my D&D campaign as well as my Vampire campaign for years. Having recently started a job at a new hobby shop he had met a lot of new people that shared the passion for gaming that we both had. The excitement in his voice could not be contained as he told me all about this group of people he met that where avid D&D players. These people want to play some D&D and they wanted to do it now, but needed a DM. I had an low-level adventure I had been tossing around in my head and assorted notebooks so I agreed. We decided to meet at the one guys house at 10pm after everyone had gotten off work. I hung up the phone, gather my core books and began to flesh out the details of said adventure.
Directions in hand I arrived at the house slightly before 10, a little nervous but excited to meet more people who potentially could be added to our regular campaign. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a beast of a man.
" You must be Jeff, My name is Chris but you can call me Shrek." The man-beast proclaimed
"Okay." I stammered as I shook his hand/paw and stepped into his lair.
Inside I was greeted by a woman who I quickly found was Mr. Shreks wife. She seemed pleasant enough, if not slightly timid. We chatted awkwardly for a moment before another knock on the door caught our attention. Behind the door was my friend, Al and one of his co-workers Joe. We exchanged greeting and began to slowly make our way to the dining room table. Once seated we began pulling out character sheets, dice and the like, preparing ourselves for a fun-filled night of dungeon stomping. Aside from the awkwardness of meeting a man named Shrek who could snap me in half and eat me as a light appetizer things seemed to be going ok.
As I normally do when playing with a new group I asked the players to go around the table and give me a brief introduction of their characters. The names of each individual character escapes me at this point. Rest assure however, it was the actions not names of these characters and players that have stuck with me all these years. Shrek proclaimed that he was a human fighter whose single purpose in life was to behead, maim, or disembowel just about everyone and everything he encountered. Mrs. Shrek would be playing a Halfling thief who had a secret crush on the warrior (of course) and would lie, cheat and steal to get him as her lover. Al would be his normal human barbarian, only he enjoyed playing a rather intelligent barbarian who loved to solve logic problems in his free time. Finally Joe would be a Dwarven fighter who was separated from his clan years ago and forced to live on the surface, making him very bitter towards other surface dwellers. Now aside from the obvious love connection between the husband and wife of the group, and they fact that almost everyone was a fighter to some degree the characters where not half bad.
The adventure I had prepared actually synced up well because I had the players going to investigate the ruins of a lost Dwarf clan. A local noble with more money then sense had a fetish with Dwarven culture and wanted to know what happened to this particular clan and perhaps gather a few artifacts from their home. This could not have worked out better, with a few changes I made it so the ruins belonged to the clan that my dwarf fighter belonged to when he was young. I thought this would be great and give a more personal touch to the adventure that everyone would enjoy.
After a short intro of the adventure to the players we began our session. Things went well as the characters made their way through the forest towards the entrance to the dungeon. As I described the surroundings I must have dwelled on one particular tree for too long as this prompted Shrek to want to search the area around it. I figured fine, there was nothing there other then grass, dirt and trees, but what the hell I would let him roll some dice to keep an air of mystery. He rolled his check, I told him he found nothing and then a PHB and DMG materialized in his hands. I sat and waited as he leafed through both books repeatedly trying to find some rule as to why he should have found something. After a few minutes of dealing with the oddest rules lawyering ever ( if there is nothing there, there is nothing there I don't give a damn what you roll) I quelled the beast by telling him he found a scrape of parchment. Shrek quickly made note of this parchment and, satisfied the party continued on their way. At the entrance to the ruins Mrs. Shrek rolled to check for traps and the like, as thieves often do when entering a scary place. These checks all succeed, but since there where no traps there nothing was found. Once again the books appeared and once again we debated. Shrek was not satified until I told the part about the loose rock they found on the side of the entrance way. Once again noting the rock they entered the ruins.
The above is the abridged version of the journey to the ruins. The entire process of walking the few miles to the ruins took about 2 hours of real time. This adventure was designed to take place in the ruins and I had no wilderness encounters planned for the journey.
Finally they made their way into the ruins and I was able to open the notebook with the adventure and begin actually playing the game. As I went over the details of the entrance to the ruins I made sure to describe they clan symbols to ensure that Joe was aware they where in the home of his clan. Joe preformed wonderfully and his character began going crazy, overwhelmed with anger, fear, and happiness. While I was impressed with the way he was portraying his character and acting everything out I caught sight of Shrek slowly reading a passage from the DMG. As he looking up slowly he began asking me hypothetical questions about combat. Since the group had not encountered anything to fight yet this caught me a little off guard, but I tried my best to accommodate. It was at this point that Mrs. Shrek chimed in and the dynamic duo began to argue the finer points of dismemberment in the world of D&D.
The table had dissolved into a lovers quarrel at this point and Al, Joe and I just sort of sat there and watched. I could tell Al had enough at this point and just wanted to play so he decided to have his character just stomp his way down the hallway of the ruins. It was at this point that the group encountered their first trap. Al fell into a pit trap and me knowing no one could hear over the domestic violence occurring in the room decided to make the pit a whole four feet deep. Al was the only one to hear the depth of the pit and decided to play along.
After getting the attention of everyone at the table he informed them of his situation, omitting the shallow depth of the pit. the group went into a panic, trying to figure out how to get the barbarian out of the pit. Being the munchkins they where no one thought to bring rope or climbing gear. Debate began and once again the rule books came out. At this point the entire group with the exception of Al is working under the assumption that he is stuck in a twenty plus feet deep hole. A good forty five minutes went by before the following occurred.
Shrek "how deep is this pit exactly?"
Me: " four feet."
Shrek" Just step the hell out of it!"
With the barbarian rescued by the valiant efforts of the rest of the group I began packing my dice and books. the group asked what I was doing. I informed them that the sun was coming up, it was now 5:30 in the morning and I was going the hell home.
The TL;DR is if you are going to marry some one that you role play with, that is great just make sure you are both not rules lawyering munchkins. I have never before or since that night ran a game where the group literally made it nowhere in over six hours of playing.
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