Play D & D the Way it was Meant to Be

This group has six players and two of them are kids, so when everybody shows up we fit really well around one of the game store's big tables. I'm player 0, the Dungeon Master. My picture is first and last on this page, and there are more pictures of me in my profile, one for every group I'm in. The players don't care if anybody new joins the game, they all usually show up, but I know that more characters would do better in the new adventure we just started. I have an extra folding table I bring when I run the game, every two weeks, so space is not a problem.

This is a second- to third-level Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The professions, or classes, work much as they do in later editions, but advance at different rates. Humans can change classes allowing them, potentially, to have fairly many levels in two or three classes, and other races multiclass differently. Such a multiclassed character is typically a level behind in hit points and other abilities, but they always get the best of each class, including to-hit bonuses and saving throws. Elves and halflings are very stealthy, and halflings excel as multiclass fighter/thieves, thief being what rogues were called when D & D was new. Elves are often fighter/magic-users, the AD&D wizard, and I allow dwarves to be fighter/clerics, a common house rule of the period. Assassins are not allowed in this campaign. The most popular classes for humans are probably magic-user, paladin, and ranger. Rangers are the stealthiest of all characters, and we are currently feeling the lack of one in the party.

Recently the group finished up a small dungeon in the town of Restenford. The party's new elf needed to find some secret doors for them to get all the treasure, and they still had a little shopping to do. They were all practically frothing at the mouth to get to what they figure is a dungeon full of undead at the top of Bone Hill, and we got started on the way there. My brother drops in on the game sometimes so he gave them some advice on weapons which they mostly ignored, and the druid he was playing, and her lion, are still with the adventurers. This half-elven mistress of nature and fire spells might be played by someone else this time, if someone new shows up.…

The ruin on Bone Hill is about 30 miles if you take the road. I kept pointing out to them that there were grassy hills if they went off the road, and a clear way between the hills, but they didn't take the bait and thus fought only a relatively small group of gnolls, supported by a couple of huge wolves, on the way. If you want to advance in AD&D sometimes you have to put yourself in the way of danger, for experience points. The gnolls and wolves kept their distance until the characters were in a small wood the second day of their travels, and weren't able to separate any of the characters from the group, so they waited until early the third day, when some more gnolls joined them, to attack the heroes before they left the wood. It didn't go well for the monsters. The explorers got less experience, and treasure, and the trip is taking longer, but they are pretty much unhurt and should get to Bone Hill at the end of a fourth day of travel.

Characters with multiple classes have more of a chance to get psionic talents: every non-elf, non-gnome character gets a first roll for psionics at every level. The chance to spontaneously develop psionics is around 10% depending on your Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma, then there is a 90% chance to acquire additional powers at higher levels. These are the psychic, often subtle, abilities of characters on the fringes of society, seen in movies of the 1980's like Firestarter, Scanners, and Star Wars. One player in our group has a character with the same mystical "Jedi mind trick" as Obi-Wan Kenobi…and we have two empaths, like Deanna Troi on Star Wars: TNG. Spoilers: (L1) The Secret of Bone Hill, and https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/looking-for-players-groups/36677/