You know how it is: you bring a board game up from the basement, take out all the pieces, and flip through the rules. After much debate, you eventually figure out what the hell you’re doing, and everyone starts to get the hang of gameplay. Or maybe you don’t, and that’s perfectly alright- you can just make it up as you go along.
No game has more potential to be this way than Dungeons and Dragons. A Dungeon Master’s Handbook, Monster Manual, Spell Compendium, and Basic Starter Rulebook, and several hours of play later, and you’re still being told by veterans that you’re doing it wrong! It’s enough to get anyone’s cloak of charisma in a twist!
I think we used this a grand total of never.
Turn back the clock about six years. I have just been given a Basic game of D&D for my birthday, and my brothers are busily sorting through all of the figurines. Then comes the much-dreaded question…how do we play? One hour and an instruction booklet later, and this ragtag gang of preteens still hasn’t even begun to grasp the complexity of the new and mythical universe that’s just been laid at their feet.
So what do we do? We play anyways.
Double Crit 