Session 3 - Adapting on the fly

In this evening's session, I was most exicited by the possibility provided to me to completely adapt the story/adventure for the evening on the fly.

First, one of the players, in our pre-game "catch up" indicates he had to sit through a girlie movie with his wife all day (The Duchess?), which he really didn't like, and was looking forward to some brutality and violence in tonight's game. On the spot, I switch the order of encounters I had in my head, and I open with a brutal "surprise attack" so that we could get the blood rolling and the tension high right out of the gates. It was a hard-fought battle that introduced a recurring villian I intend to use for a while in Kalarel (from KoS).

Second, we decide to roleplay in town for a while, and we start a skill challenge. The players go off in some different directions, and push the story in ways I didn't expect. We didn't finish the skill challenge we started, but the party gets rolled up in a very interesting "child slavery" ring that has taken root in the town. They pursue this angle vigorously, and what is essentially a one-page writeup in the FRCG became the evening's adventure. On the spot, I had to come up with two encounters for Zark's minions, and then for Zark himself, which appeared would be a solo encounter. Opening up the PH to the "rogue" section, and glancing over the DMG "how to upgrade a villian" I was done in less than 5 minutes. The combat went great, and it was the first solo battle for the party.

I was very, very impressed with how smoothly the system adapted to the needs of the story the players developed and were interested in. I was also shocked at how little from what I had "prepared" that I needed to use.

Kudos to the easy adaptation and simple math that allows for these kinds of "on the fly" adjustments!