FreeTheWeasel
Explorer
Greetings,
I am a relatively new DM. I played 1'st edition back in the early 80's and then left D&D for many years until my daughter asked to play three years ago. I quickly stocked up on 4E materials and we did a few in store Encounters and then joined a home group which eventually fell apart, more because the DM's style just didn't fit my interests anymore. As it turns out, 30 years later, hacking and slashing all the time just isn't that interesting anymore.
I then ran a few 4E encounters with my daughter and her friends, and had a very good time. The kids really liked it, but time ran short and we didn't play regularly.
Once 5E came out, I got really excited again, grabbed the the PHB and the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. There are many threads about how the module is great and many threads about the problems that need to be fixed. I found both of these discussions extremely helpful in guiding how I ran the module. I dramatically increased the amount of description, and it worked very well.
----- Spoilers -------
The biggest question I had was how to deal with the dragon. Why would that enormous beast run away when it could, single handedly kill, maim, or eat everything in the town? Going into the game, I had a few ideas but the best one I could come up with (I stole it actually) was to be explicit. Tell the party that the dragon just doesn't want to be there. But how? Do they just look at it and know? Perception check? Magic insight from a deity?
You should know something about the group. It consists of two 13 year old girls and one 13 year old boy. Perhaps it the ratio of X chromosomes to Y that made the difference, but they were really really smart. Had the 13 year old Me been there, we would have been attacking everything including the trees, the rocks, and the people we were there to protect.
No, these kids took out the Kobolds at the beginning, looted the bodies, took their cult amulets, snuck around, avoided two random encounters, wiped out a third group who had captives, met the Governor, wiped out the rats in the tunnel, and then bluffed their way out of the group of cultists sacrificing merchants at the river.
They walked up with their stolen amulets proudly displayed on their chests and commanded that the cultists turn over their prisoners. Hail Tiamat. I couldn't believe it. No ambush, no stealth. They wanted a prisoner and so they commanded one of them to accompany them on a special mission dictated to them by the leader. The rest of the cultists were to join the rest in town and continue looting. They rolled better than their insight checks and so it happened.
Then, they talked the guy up searching for information. Then they asked him about the dark shadow circling above them. I couldn't believe it. They handed me the solution. I had the cultists say "What, that flying slug? That lazy, incompetent fool who is here only because Frulam convinced him to help? I don't trust him. He, a dragon himself, should leap at the chance to advance our cause and yet, he would run at the first opportunity. He'd take any excuse to leave, that selfish cow. . . ."
Then they knocked him out and dragged him and the freed prisoners back to the keep.
The dragon attacked of course and I rolled the dragon breath damage in front of the kids just to give them a sense of mortality and so they did the only sane thing they could: they ran into the stairwell carrying an unconscious governor.
Now what? How am I going to get my DM-butt out of this now? I've very effectively scared them into running, the dragon is now circling around and around, blasting the hell out of everything.
The dragonborn sorcerer uses his Message cantrip to talk to the dragon in draconic.
What? Really?
Yes. They talk to the dragon and slowly convince him to leave. The kids are freaking out trying to find a way to run off this enormous beast and they built themselves a skill challenge.
It was epic. At first, it was really hard and I may have applied the rules a bit incorrectly. Also, why would a dragon deign to talk to these insignificant bipeds? But the message cantrip forced conversation. It was a telepathic connection to his ear. He had to hear them.
The dragon has a very high perception check which is the wrong skill to contest a bluff. I finally realized that insight makes a whole lot more sense. Eventually, as they wore him down, I made it a straight DC check that dropped to 15 as the dragon became more convinced. Five successes later, the dragon utters a single response to their fevered appeals to his ego "Huh . ." grabs a cow and flies off.
I don't know if others would see that as legal application of the rules, but they had a good time and really really were invested and scared. I thought it was a brilliant solution on their part.
What fun. It was like I was 13 all over again in my parent's basement slurping Mountain Dew and eating Doritos.
Hail Tiamat!
--FreeTheWeasel
I am a relatively new DM. I played 1'st edition back in the early 80's and then left D&D for many years until my daughter asked to play three years ago. I quickly stocked up on 4E materials and we did a few in store Encounters and then joined a home group which eventually fell apart, more because the DM's style just didn't fit my interests anymore. As it turns out, 30 years later, hacking and slashing all the time just isn't that interesting anymore.
I then ran a few 4E encounters with my daughter and her friends, and had a very good time. The kids really liked it, but time ran short and we didn't play regularly.
Once 5E came out, I got really excited again, grabbed the the PHB and the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. There are many threads about how the module is great and many threads about the problems that need to be fixed. I found both of these discussions extremely helpful in guiding how I ran the module. I dramatically increased the amount of description, and it worked very well.
----- Spoilers -------
The biggest question I had was how to deal with the dragon. Why would that enormous beast run away when it could, single handedly kill, maim, or eat everything in the town? Going into the game, I had a few ideas but the best one I could come up with (I stole it actually) was to be explicit. Tell the party that the dragon just doesn't want to be there. But how? Do they just look at it and know? Perception check? Magic insight from a deity?
You should know something about the group. It consists of two 13 year old girls and one 13 year old boy. Perhaps it the ratio of X chromosomes to Y that made the difference, but they were really really smart. Had the 13 year old Me been there, we would have been attacking everything including the trees, the rocks, and the people we were there to protect.
No, these kids took out the Kobolds at the beginning, looted the bodies, took their cult amulets, snuck around, avoided two random encounters, wiped out a third group who had captives, met the Governor, wiped out the rats in the tunnel, and then bluffed their way out of the group of cultists sacrificing merchants at the river.
They walked up with their stolen amulets proudly displayed on their chests and commanded that the cultists turn over their prisoners. Hail Tiamat. I couldn't believe it. No ambush, no stealth. They wanted a prisoner and so they commanded one of them to accompany them on a special mission dictated to them by the leader. The rest of the cultists were to join the rest in town and continue looting. They rolled better than their insight checks and so it happened.
Then, they talked the guy up searching for information. Then they asked him about the dark shadow circling above them. I couldn't believe it. They handed me the solution. I had the cultists say "What, that flying slug? That lazy, incompetent fool who is here only because Frulam convinced him to help? I don't trust him. He, a dragon himself, should leap at the chance to advance our cause and yet, he would run at the first opportunity. He'd take any excuse to leave, that selfish cow. . . ."
Then they knocked him out and dragged him and the freed prisoners back to the keep.
The dragon attacked of course and I rolled the dragon breath damage in front of the kids just to give them a sense of mortality and so they did the only sane thing they could: they ran into the stairwell carrying an unconscious governor.
Now what? How am I going to get my DM-butt out of this now? I've very effectively scared them into running, the dragon is now circling around and around, blasting the hell out of everything.
The dragonborn sorcerer uses his Message cantrip to talk to the dragon in draconic.
What? Really?
Yes. They talk to the dragon and slowly convince him to leave. The kids are freaking out trying to find a way to run off this enormous beast and they built themselves a skill challenge.
It was epic. At first, it was really hard and I may have applied the rules a bit incorrectly. Also, why would a dragon deign to talk to these insignificant bipeds? But the message cantrip forced conversation. It was a telepathic connection to his ear. He had to hear them.
The dragon has a very high perception check which is the wrong skill to contest a bluff. I finally realized that insight makes a whole lot more sense. Eventually, as they wore him down, I made it a straight DC check that dropped to 15 as the dragon became more convinced. Five successes later, the dragon utters a single response to their fevered appeals to his ego "Huh . ." grabs a cow and flies off.
I don't know if others would see that as legal application of the rules, but they had a good time and really really were invested and scared. I thought it was a brilliant solution on their part.
What fun. It was like I was 13 all over again in my parent's basement slurping Mountain Dew and eating Doritos.
Hail Tiamat!
--FreeTheWeasel
