Success!
Jessie was over last night. We ate homemade pizza (one pepperoni, the other a combo of pineapple and mushrooms), and enjoyed Bailey's Hershey chocolate pie he had picked out. Afterwards, we gamed.
Actually, we pseudo-roleplayed through the Orcs of the High Mountains. I hesitate to call it a strictly role-playing affair if only because it was Jessie's first encounter with RPGs and we were trying to ease her into that style of gaming. So, we stuck with mainly boardgame-type of explanations regarding the game mechanics and then gently begin the shift over to role-playing by describing the actions our characters took, talking in character, and detailing the actual combat outcomes in highly descriptive ways.
I knew we were successful in our attempt when in the final combat encounter Jessie described how her character, Carlos the Wizard (a riff on James Franco's D&D character, Carlos the Dwarf, in Freaks & Geeks), had her summoned small dragon, "Speedy Gonzales," bite down and hold onto a goblin, the dragon shaking the humanoid in its maw like a dog with a chew toy, and then tossing the dead goblin into the far wall of a cavern.
I say that such description is successful role-playing by a first timer, and an especially illustrative description mixed with both humor and deadly seriousness.
And Jessie wants to play again.
Actually, we pseudo-roleplayed through the Orcs of the High Mountains. I hesitate to call it a strictly role-playing affair if only because it was Jessie's first encounter with RPGs and we were trying to ease her into that style of gaming. So, we stuck with mainly boardgame-type of explanations regarding the game mechanics and then gently begin the shift over to role-playing by describing the actions our characters took, talking in character, and detailing the actual combat outcomes in highly descriptive ways.
I knew we were successful in our attempt when in the final combat encounter Jessie described how her character, Carlos the Wizard (a riff on James Franco's D&D character, Carlos the Dwarf, in Freaks & Geeks), had her summoned small dragon, "Speedy Gonzales," bite down and hold onto a goblin, the dragon shaking the humanoid in its maw like a dog with a chew toy, and then tossing the dead goblin into the far wall of a cavern.
I say that such description is successful role-playing by a first timer, and an especially illustrative description mixed with both humor and deadly seriousness.
And Jessie wants to play again.