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This article orignally appeared on The Pen and Paper Portal.

Our second session has come and gone. This time there were a few new rules with some added confusion, two more heated battles, and our very own troubadour. We began where we left off, having defeated a band of half-retarded goblins only to discover that the town’s mayor had also suddenly disappeared…DUN DUN DUN. I approached this week’s adventure with a ton of enthusiasm. It was going to be fun to sit down and really let the role-playing come to life.

Last week we had kept things relatively simple, rolling our 20’s and adding stat modifiers to see if we had hit. This week we found out about our weapon proficiencies. While this isn’t the most difficult concept to grasp, the explanation was muddled a bit in the mass of conversation that was occurring around out table. During our first battle of the session, however, Coop kindly explained to me that while using my rogue’s short sword I had an extra stat-modifier. I now hit a little more frequently. Sweet.

We had a few spectators this week. This created a fair amount of secondary noise that caused half of our table to miss certain statements by the DM. Rules needed to be repeated on occasion and certain aspects of the story were stilted because we went off on tangents. If there is one thing I can advise, it is to not let outsiders into your session. Sure it’s fun and you want everyone to be included, but it can definitely hinder your game play. Although…it was nice to have a guitar player on hand who performed such classics as “Super Mario Theme,” “Tetris Theme,” and “Zorro Theme,” all with a mild Spanish flare!

Spectators aside, this week really allowed us to explore our characters abilities.  I had fist thought my rogue was a bit weak, as his hits seemed to do only mild damage. During the battles this week we used miniatures, which added a great deal of strategy to the battles and also completely changed the way my character plays.  Being able to push around enemies and set them up for devastating flanking attacks is awesome. I can imagine that teamed with a cooperative battle commander, a rogue could create some devastating tag team maneuvers.  I was a bit worried my character wasn’t going to contribute much in battles, but now that I know my role I’m pretty confident I can really jack some monsters up.

There were also plenty of check rolls this week. Now, as a non-player of D&D, I knew you had to throw down a die for the occasional task, such as checking for traps or jumping over a chasm.  I was never privy to the fact that there were such things as passive rolls. At one point in our journey, my rogue and the party’s ranger opened a vault full of jewels. While the rest of the party continued to explore, we helped ourselves to the riches. Our DM rolled to check against their passive perception. Luckily we got away with it, and I was 25 gold richer for the experience.

These passive rolls make the game even more exciting. I can imagine the moments where you try to sneakily get something past your comrades, only to be caught and have the awkward task of explaining yourself.

One question, and this is a little more abstract: In instances where you pass a die roll for a passive check (such as greedily stealing some jewels and talking about it loudly), what are your party members to do? It’s sort of like the moments in court when something rash is blurted out and there is an objection. The jury is supposed to just forget what they heard, but I’m not sure that is possible.

It seems the same for D&D. My party was supposed to just forget that I just screwed them out of money, but will they ever really forget that? They seemed to this week, but that was just a minor action. What happens when it’s a bunch of platinum, or a cache of magical items? I know this is just role-playing, but as a player I know I’d be a little a salty, and possibly hold a grudge.

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