Session 1
The plan is to meet up at Xak's place to discuss the campaign and characters. Some of us have never met before, so a round of introductions if merited. Xak gives lousy directions, so people are late. We pass the time playing Brawl. The DM is ganking us with Sonic and his flippin' final smash. Much cussing ensues. My Kirby has a few good moments, and I have a couple beastly rounds with DeDeDe. My Bowser needs serious work though.
Everyone finally arrives. More brawl ensues. Sonic continues to annoy us until we all start ganging up on him. There is also much hate for Snake it seems.
We finally sit around the table and start talking shop. The dm doesn't seem overly enthusiastic about the campaign (Expedition to Undermountain). In fact, he seems to hate it. Xak and myself are the CO guys. The other two players are newbies. Some time is spent explaining how the game works in general to the new guys, and then we're on to character creation.
Newguy1 wants to raise an army of dead. The dread necromancer is immediately suggested, or focused necromancer, but in the end we leave him with a generalist wizard so that he keeps all his options open. I disagree with this; I think it would have been easier giving him the DN. As a newbie, I think it's better to offer fewer choices and teach him to use those options well (he's a full caster, he still has a bajillion options available). Anyhow, he picks a halfling and the DM helps him fill in the rest of the sheet.
Newguy2 doesn't know anything either. He doesn't even play video games rpgs that much. He tells us straight out that he doesn't want to play a character that requires thinking. Okay, h-orc barbarian it is. I suggested full orc and putting on goggles to mitigate the light sensitivity (that cost something like 5 sp). This was vetoed because he didn't want to wear sunglasses. Anyhow, Newguy2 rolls an 18 and 16 out of the gate. He nearly puts the 18 into Str until I remind Xak that we don't have a trapfinder. We look at each other, then look at Newguy2. Newguy2 looks at us and says "hey, I'm perfectly comfortable being the meatshield". Okay, 18 Con it is. He will also be picking up the dungeonscape alt class feature which trades trap sense for smashing stuff. Our current plan for the first few levels of dungeon crawling now involve having the cleric ready an action to heal and sending the barbarian in first.
Considering we have two new guys, Xak reluctantly agrees to be the bandaid. We spend the rest of the night discussing build ideas. I still have a blank sheet by the end of the night.
Session 2
Sonic is still kicking our collective rears. DeDeDe fails miserably, but G&W makes a wicked comeback. I think I've just found my new main.
By the second hour Newguy1 has not arrived yet and I'm discovering the intricacies of Arcbound Ravager. Not so effective in multiplayer, but still scary. Oh, and skullclamp is stupid. Utterly utterly stupid. Xak pulls out a darksteel colossus/proteus staff combo. Have I mentioned that Mirrodin block has a lot of really janky cards? I need to remember to bring my cards for next week.
Third hour rolls around and enough whining has convinced the DM to stop playing Sonic. Newguy2 has a habit of self-destructing faster than we can KO him. This is due mostly to his spamming of B moves that ultimately take him off the stage. We narrow down the list of characters who can't readily kill themselves that way and give him Bowser to try. This seems to work well and his SD numbers drop nearly in half. I'm back to Kirby and somehow have more collective kills than everyone else, despite almost never winning the laurel. That little puffball has nice power for such a lightweight. Much improved since Melee.
Session 3 is later this week. I'm packing an extra gamecube controller and my MtG cards. All in all, these D&D sessions have been a lot of fun so far.