Girlz Gamin'

Well, tonight was our first get-together for the girls gaming group. We spent most of the night finishing up our characters (which of course took us awhile because we had to look up most everything--even those of us who were relatively experienced were playing different kinds of characters than usual), but after that we did actually get about an hour to play. I am happy to report that at least from my point of view, it seemed to go very well. I was worried about that typical first-session awkwardness and the potential dicey-ness of creating a plausible reason for a motley group of adventurers to join up, but it turned out just fine. Maybe it's something to do with that feminine tendency to be agreeable and helpful, or maybe my friends just took pity on my newbie DM-ness and went along with my obvious set-up, but it seemed pretty smooth. I found myself improvising character interactions and story points as I went along, and not only was that fun to do (I have a warm little sunray of hope that I might actually be good at this), but I don't think anyone even noticed. (I mean, uh, for those of you reading this who were there, of course I had that allllll planned out in the minutest detail, oh yes I did…that town was *supposed* to be called Townage!) So in that sense being a DM felt kind of like being a novel-writer, but messier, because it's in real-time (no revisions!) and with far more input from others.

Is it any different to be playing with all girls? Hard to tell, yet. Sure, there was plenty of chit-chat, baked goods and knitting around the gaming table, but then we have all that anyway in our other regular game session. I'm curious to see how it works out with future sessions--will there be a general aversion to combat? (Probably not--we're a bloodthirsty bunch, and frankly, whacking evil monsters is a good part of the fun of D&D.) Will there be more direct roleplay and less rule-mongering? More character-focused cooperative storytelling and less concern with whether or not what a character wants to do is allowable given a specific set of rules? I just don't know. Maybe it won't be any different at all, except for the obvious fact that there are different player personalities involved in this group.

Anyway, I definitely had a great time and I'm really looking forward to the next session. I still can't remember most of the rules, but hey, that's what the sourcebooks are for!