Mastering My First Dungeon: Wizard's On Fire

Last night was my first D&D game as Dungeon Master.  I have always wanted to run a game of my own, and in the lingering fever that is Post-PAX depression, my friends pushed me into finally doing it.

Of course, the friends that are involved all live in different states, so an in-person game was not an option.  Instead, we used a host of computer tools to play an online game.  RPTools has a bunch of great tools for running a game online, of which I used MapTool for the majority of the game itself, and InitTool to keep track of character and mob initiative.

We had some trouble getting MapTool accessible on my own network from the internet, so we resorted to created a VPN through Hamachi, which made everything work swimmingly.

Of course, playing a (virtual) table-top RPG would be no fun at all without face-to-face contact between the players and myself, so we set up ooVoo without webcams and mics.  Honestly, I can't imagine playing this game without the webcams.  All together, the tech tools we used gave us all the feeling of an old-school, pen-and-paper RPG, complete with all the inside jokes, innuendo and not-so-subtle jibes, all while hundreds of miles away from each other.  Except for Kenn, of course.  He's right up the road.

Overall, the response from my players (Ah, I love saying that. My players...) was good.  Shayne hasn't played an RPG in years - and had never worked with 4e before - so he has a bit of a learning curve to overcome.  He seems to have gotten the hang of his rogue pretty quickly.  While Dennis' wizard spent several rounds on fire, he was still able to pull off a few well-placed magic missiles.  Kenn's warlord really ran the show, pushing and pulling folks this way and that, and giving the rogue just the right amount of support to lay waste to the group of kobolds who were unfortunate enough to ambush the party.  You can witness the bloody field of carnage in the picture above.

Being my first DM'ing experience, I did decide to run a pre-made module, rather than develop my own story. I'd rather get used to the nuts and bolts of running a game before trying to muddy the waters with my own imaginings.  If we can make it through this adventure in one piece, I may then subject my players to the wild torments of my own making.

We're scheduled to play the next round a week from now.  Oh, the places you'll go, my friends...