Session Report: Newbies Tackle Tomb of the Serpent Kings

I'm back at home before college starts, and found myself running a game for my family. My cousin brought her boyfriend, and a game for them ended up including my sisters and another friend, who had never identified as nerds and knew nothing about role-playing. My cousin was the only one with experience playing RPGs (A few sessions in college years ago, and a deep nostalgia for Morrowind) and had never played old-school games. Add in four more newbies, and I pulled out (a lightly modded) Tomb of the Serpent Kings.

Our victims cast:

Twin sister: Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior (Fighter)
Her friend: Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Wizard)
Little sister: Maxine (Thief)
My cousin: Elphaba (Wizard)
Her boyfriend: Alaric the Dim (Barbarian)

After generating the mechanics of their characters (and making the character sheets from scratch due to a distinct lack of printers), deciding their names, and rolling on B/X Blackrazor's tables, (100 Reasons Characters are Together and B/X Headgear) the party arrived at the entrance to the tomb.

The Session

They tackled the guard rooms sequentially, learning to break stuff open to get goodies inside (though not before Alaric took a gout of acid to the face). In the scholar's room, they found a bronze statuette (of some archaeological significance) with something rattling around inside it. Before Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior could smash it open, Sabrina convinced her to store it and investigate later.

In the sorcerer's room, they recovered the ring, which after some hemming and hawing, was worn by Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior (yes, I will use the full name every time).

Coming to the blocked door, they attempted to lift the stone, but backed off when they heard the iron pegs clicking. Investigating the door, they located the hammer trap, and Maxine managed to activate it from a safe distance, opening the way to the next room.

Finding the tomb, they proceed to open the sarcophagus of one of the wives first. The skeleton within appeared dead, but as one player (Elphaba, I believe) attempted to pry off its fangs, it came to life and attacked. After Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior knocked her away, the other two burst open, and the party was beset by three snake-man skeletons.

The action economy proved to overcome all else. Though one of our wizards took a small hit (for a third of her health!) and the barbarian continued to be a meat-shield, the party hacked, bashed, magic-missiled, raged and crushed the skeletons with fairly little damage taken.

And yes, Elphaba got the fangs.

The party broke for lunch, and in the end decided to take a long rest outside to let their wizards recuperate their Magic Dice. See, here I messed up. The snake-ring, besides poisoning as an attack, provokes a Save vs Poison after a long rest. Which... I forgot. So instead I retconned the ring as doing something else entirely, which will become apparent quite soon.

The party felt the entrance to the south looking at them, judging them. Naturally, they pushed Maxine forward. After determining there was no threat besides the heeby-jeebies, Sabrina identified the statue as Typhon, a tyrannical snake god of ages past.

Descending to the statue room, they entered the assassin's room, pocketing the silver icon and the polearms.

Pressing forward, they entered the octagonal chamber and investigated the water pit. Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior appropriated Maxine's ten foot pole (her player had just left the table to get a drink) and dredged the pit. She felt something grab onto the pole. Then another thing. Arming themselves and letting the pole stand in water, they saw a pair of rotten, bandaged hands reach for the rim... to reveal two mummy hands, independent of a body.

Elphaba attempted to communicate with them. In sign language. Establishing that the hands did not know sign language, though Elphaba still managed to sign something obscene, one jumped at her throat, and was swiftly pulled off by Alaric.

A brief skirmish followed, in which Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior, with a pair of solid rolls, skewered both the hands on her polearm like a shish-kebab.

Returning to dredge the pit, they found a gold chain, a magic ring (Sabrina put it on and got an eye-full of its properties) and a magic scabbard. They felt a strong, oily, disgusting aura coming off of it. Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior, immediately put her sword in it (*Laughs in Dungeon Master*).

Finally, they pulled out the pole, and found the mummy's head gripping it by the teeth. Setting it on the floor and securing it, they got an earful of my creepy-insane voice. In very roundabout fashion, the mummy communicated that in ages past, it betrayed the serpent-king, for which it was cursed, and that the serpent-king is (maybe) still down in the dungeon.

Taking this as encouragement, the party stopped Wendy Wu, Homecoming Warrior from kicking the head back in the pool and we ended the session there.

Takeaways

I consider this session an absolute win. A win for the players, most of whom got their first taste of role-playing and enjoyed it. A win for me, getting to run a game with family for the first time. A win for TotSK, proving itself as a great intro dungeon. A win for the GLOG, being easy to run even with brand new players.

And a win for the hobby, which now has several new, young players, without the cynicism of those veterans of the edition wars and the Satanic Panic. They've called for another session tomorrow (!), which is today by the time I upload this.

I was surprised by the enthusiasm of new players, jumping in without really knowing what the game was. My twin, at first dismissive, quickly got into it. Surface characterization ('I'm the thief') quickly gave way to banter and stronger relations.

Now that they're hooked, let's pull in the line.

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