The beginning of the campaign

Well we haven't been gaming for a while now and I wanted to change that fact. I set about to start a new AD&D Greyhawk campaign. It started with four players; Jonathan, Dave, Corey, and Matt. We're also anxiously waiting for Brian to come back this summer too, and he already has a character ready to go. We have a couple other players in the breeze but nothing yet from them. I prefer to cap the group at five players.

My goal for this campaign is for it to be a long-running consistent campaign. I would like the players to have the opportunity to take first level characters to higher levels, and continue on. A campaign with memorable characters, adventures, villains, weird encounters, quests, combat and deaths. A fantasy campaign of legend. Along the way several of us may trade off the DM hat from time to time. We will see.

The game is set in the World of Greyhawk. Its the one I prefer, its also the one I have set previous campaigns in so its easy to link them up at some later date. The campaign is starting out in Southwest Keoland on the edge of the Dreadwood Forest. It is one of my favorite regions in Greyhawk. The rules system used is AD&D 1st edition. That system, and the Moldvay Basic/Expert rules are the ones I grew up playing. They ARE fantasy role playing to me (along with some ICE Middle Earth Role Playing tossed in for good measure). I use the core three AD&D hardbacks; Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, and the Fiend Folio. For me that four book set is the closest thing to fantasy gaming perfection. They deliver the sort of game my friends and I enjoy.

Now that I'm a married man I find it hard to get most of an entire day per week for gaming ;) So it's a bi-weekly game. Usually for a good 6 hours on every other Saturday or Sunday, starting at 1pm and ending around 7pm.

I had each player create two characters prior to the first session, and then chose one to start with. Each is playing one character with the exception of Dave who specifically wanted to play both his elf magic user, and half-elf druid. I allowed it. Stat generation was roll 4d6, discard the lowest for each stat. Roll up 3 sets of stats and pick the best.

The starting first level party is: Jannish, (a lawful evil elf "thief", in reality an assassin), Ivarr (a neutral human fighter), Banning (a neutral good human ranger), Io the Good (a neutral good elf magic user) and Qaurajoki (a neutral half-elf druid).

May luck be with them, for a dark and gritty fantasy world awaits them.