Once more unto the breach...

I haven't had time to do any sort of personal world-building or campaign design, so for starters we're going to be playing the 3.0 module The Sunless Citadel.

I wasn't blown away by it, but it has a few elements that will appeal fairly well to my group, and it's a dungeon crawl that offers a little bit of everything to a group of new gamers without being too confusing or challenging.

I think it'll suit us just fine. I'd prefer to have some bigger picture elements intertwined with this adventure, so perhaps I'll come up with a few this week before our game on the 1st.

The players are as follows:

• Hans (unemployed ex-background casting director and adventurer, not kidding) - Bartholomew Stubblefield; quixotic halfling Paladin raised by humans and slightly in denial of his true heritage. He rides his trusty St. Bernard, Chauncey into battle. Hans is the only one other than myself with any substantial RPG experience.

• Rachael (Lawyer and Hans' wife) - Aviv; wood-elven Druid and her companion wolf, Ajax.

• Rob (composer) - Korilian Red; snooty half-elven Bard who strums a mean hurdy-gurdy.

• Doug (audio tech/engineer) - Dezba Dar; painted elf Ranger from the desert wastes and deadeye marksman.

• Brock (abider) - ?; axe-swinging dwarven Barbarian.

• Jeanne (waitress/karate instructor) - ?; ass-kicking half-elven Monk.

• Jefferson (writer/humble narrator) - Curghan-An-Geloth Rem; human Necromancer of murky heritage with a penchant for the sciences of life, death and what lies beyond them both.

In most of my RPGing in the past, since there was often a fair amount of DM-swapping going on, our DMs had players that they would simply run as an NPC when they were wearing the big hat. Even thought I'm probably going to be the sole DM of this campaign, I'm making a character anyway. Sue me.

We've no dedicated healer, but Aviv has the potential to fill that role and in a few levels Bartholomew will be able to back her up.

We've no rogueish lock-picker/device-disabler or stealther, which will probably prove frustrating when not every door can be laboriously smashed to flinders. I foresee Curghan writing a lot of Knock scrolls. Dezba is decent at hiding and moving silent, so he may end up fulfilling that role whether he had envisioned doing so or not.

None of our melee players are heavily armed/armored, so that's a little odd as well. Bartholomew wears studded leather and wields a rapier. The nameless dwarf uses a one-handed axe.

Hans and I have done a few short sessions to oil the gears, and lately Rob and Doug joined us for a brief evening's play, so now our four characters are together and on the path to adventure. I think the two of them as well as Rachael will quite enjoy themselves and be as enthusiastic as Hans and I before long.

Brock and Jeanne are unknown quantities. I have a feeling they may be persistently distracted and confused and I fear Brock especially may be inclined to wander and act recklessly. Not that there isn't room for that in any good game session, but I wouldn't be surprised if his character just went off on his own and disappeared before anyone had any reason to try and stop him.

We shall see.