When newcomers join experienced groups in Dungeons & Dragons, it often leads to exciting situations. In one session, the Dungeon Master convinced his player with a lie to want to continue playing.
How did the lie come about? Reddit user OmegaGuerri was the Dungeon Master (DM) of a Dungeons & Dragons session that included two newcomers, one of whom had never played a tabletop role-playing game before. He had to be convinced of how cool it actually is.
In his Reddit thread, he shares the story of how he managed to engage this newcomer. So they created a character for him together, with a backstory that connected him directly to the group’s setting.
When the entire group came together to receive their first quest from an NPC commander, the DM lied to his player so boldly that he was immediately fired up.
“He sat quietly in the voice chat for a while and finally replied”
How did the DM lie? When the commander provides some background information about their “secret” quest, the new player becomes suspicious. Because it is mentioned that a cave passage was supposedly discovered only 5 years ago. However, based on his character’s backstory, the player knew that couldn’t be true.
So he asks his DM outside of the role-play situation if he was mistaken, as his own character had fled through this passage 17 years ago and there were supposed to be guards there at that time.
The game master denies and agrees with him that what his player says is indeed correct. This makes the newcomer hesitate, so the DM directly asks him if he thinks the commander is lying. Thereupon, OmegaGuerri writes, the player sat quietly in the voice chat for a while and then replied: “… can he do that?”
The game master then had him roll to see if his character would uncover the lie in the game or if it would go unnoticed.
This whole situation impressed the newcomer so much that after the session he approached the game master and told him that he now understood why people enjoy tabletop role-playing games so much and when they would meet next – something that brought a broad smile to the DM’s face and made him proud.
How is the story received by the community? In the comments under the thread, many users become nostalgic and recall their own first sessions. Others cheer on how the DM managed to pull the new player right into the action:
- imababydragon writes: “When NPCs lie or simply don’t know and make things up, it’s a great way to make the game feel more realistic.”
- Dg-wildstar chimes in: “Congratulations on getting a player excited about the game. I love stories like this!”
- PrayForMojo_ celebrates: “‘You can do that?!?’ is one of the main reasons newcomers show up for the second session.”
- Intelligent-Key-8732 comments: “For this to work, my players would have to remember their own backstories.”
So the story ended well for this newcomer, and he found his way into the exciting world of tabletop role-playing games. However, for another new player, his first round did not go nearly as well, and his character met an untimely end: New player is so mean in Dungeons & Dragons that his own group takes him out in the first session, though they didn’t want to
