Best in-game experience/encounter 2019: Player view
- Thread starter Myrhdraak
- Start date
ccs
41st lv DM
Finally, after all these years, editions, groups, and campaigns, getting to play one of my favorite adventure module series - I3-I5: The Desert of Desolation (Pharoh/Oasis of the White Palm/Martek).
we used the original 1e modules converted to 5e.
I've run this series numerous times & in different editions, with different groups over the ages. But I'd never gotten to play it.
As an added bonus I got to do this using two of my favorite characters (my 1/2ling Barbarian primary + my 1/2ling Warlock in the final scenes) &, thanks to how I5 ends, wrap up both their current story arcs for the time being. (their stories started about 6 months after 5e launched with our 1st 5e campaign & have since collectively spanned 5 campaigns, 2 different systems, & several cameo NPC uses)
we used the original 1e modules converted to 5e.
I've run this series numerous times & in different editions, with different groups over the ages. But I'd never gotten to play it.
As an added bonus I got to do this using two of my favorite characters (my 1/2ling Barbarian primary + my 1/2ling Warlock in the final scenes) &, thanks to how I5 ends, wrap up both their current story arcs for the time being. (their stories started about 6 months after 5e launched with our 1st 5e campaign & have since collectively spanned 5 campaigns, 2 different systems, & several cameo NPC uses)
RangerWickett
Legend
A friend ran a campaign where we were all lizardmen, in a society that was a weird mashup of Atlantean super-science and Aztec stone age. All of life revolved around the game Blastball, where the winning team of the league of mortals would play against the winning team of the league of the afterlife. And if a team from hell ever won the championship, the world would end.
We weren't members of the team from our city. No, we weren't nearly so powerful. But we could get really great tickets to the game if we did a favor for the temple, by taking two wagons full of rat things to throw into a volcano as an offering to the fire god. If we failed, great disaster might befall our team. But if we succeeded, we'd ensure that our team's hot tub was the perfect temperature for them to de-stress before the big game.
Our mission was critical.
So we hitched the wagons behind a triceratops and headed into the forbidden jungle, following a map drawn on the skin of a human's back, which would guide us to the nearest volcano.
The Encounter
In the distance ahead of us we spotted a metal orb floating in the canopy of the jungle, perhaps ten feet across. We approached warily, and stopped when we saw three strange beings interacting with the orb.
They stood upon a floating platform, and wore clothes with numerous bulky pockets. They had the same general body shape of a lizardman, but with no tail, and their face resembled squids, with tentacles around their mouths.
One of them looked our direction, and in our minds we heard a voice:
"Oh look! A food truck!"
And that's how our party encountered mind flayers. Not by fighting them, but by selling them some of the rat things we were taking to sacrifice, whose brains they ate.
We weren't members of the team from our city. No, we weren't nearly so powerful. But we could get really great tickets to the game if we did a favor for the temple, by taking two wagons full of rat things to throw into a volcano as an offering to the fire god. If we failed, great disaster might befall our team. But if we succeeded, we'd ensure that our team's hot tub was the perfect temperature for them to de-stress before the big game.
Our mission was critical.
So we hitched the wagons behind a triceratops and headed into the forbidden jungle, following a map drawn on the skin of a human's back, which would guide us to the nearest volcano.
The Encounter
In the distance ahead of us we spotted a metal orb floating in the canopy of the jungle, perhaps ten feet across. We approached warily, and stopped when we saw three strange beings interacting with the orb.
They stood upon a floating platform, and wore clothes with numerous bulky pockets. They had the same general body shape of a lizardman, but with no tail, and their face resembled squids, with tentacles around their mouths.
One of them looked our direction, and in our minds we heard a voice:
"Oh look! A food truck!"
And that's how our party encountered mind flayers. Not by fighting them, but by selling them some of the rat things we were taking to sacrifice, whose brains they ate.
Pendragon
Before the encounter: Years ago, my first character traded away his happiness at the goblin market in exchange for a male heir (my second character). Then he broke the pact by getting himself and his children baptised. To get recompense, the fay lady he made the deal with stole back a child from him, (my second characters younger brother). The loss impacted both characters deeply, and the father resented the son for his brother’s loss.
The encounter: After half a life of knighting about, this year the son found his way into Faerie, to the lady’s manor, where his brother was serving as her champion. He challenged her for his brother’s freedom, but then of course had to fight his own brother. He lost, but when he was about to get killed, the Lady made him an offer: HE could serve as her champion, forever, and she would let the brother go free. He accepted, and now he’s a fay npc.
After the encounter: My third character is the fay knight’s bastard son, mishappen and ugly from birth because of a curse. He doesn’t know who his parents are, but have been raised as a knight by another pc, now dead, who knew the truth. He is just starting to figure all this out. He hasn’t actually met his father yet.
All this is tremendous fun. I love the generational play in Pendragon.
Before the encounter: Years ago, my first character traded away his happiness at the goblin market in exchange for a male heir (my second character). Then he broke the pact by getting himself and his children baptised. To get recompense, the fay lady he made the deal with stole back a child from him, (my second characters younger brother). The loss impacted both characters deeply, and the father resented the son for his brother’s loss.
The encounter: After half a life of knighting about, this year the son found his way into Faerie, to the lady’s manor, where his brother was serving as her champion. He challenged her for his brother’s freedom, but then of course had to fight his own brother. He lost, but when he was about to get killed, the Lady made him an offer: HE could serve as her champion, forever, and she would let the brother go free. He accepted, and now he’s a fay npc.
After the encounter: My third character is the fay knight’s bastard son, mishappen and ugly from birth because of a curse. He doesn’t know who his parents are, but have been raised as a knight by another pc, now dead, who knew the truth. He is just starting to figure all this out. He hasn’t actually met his father yet.
All this is tremendous fun. I love the generational play in Pendragon.
Scott Christian
Hero
Finally, after dozens of campaigns, I had a character retire prior to the campaign ending. He didn't die. He didn't go down as a legend. He simply found his lost/kidnapped child in the middle of the campaign and walked away. He now has a nice quiet farm. A ninth level fighter with a chest full of magic items. 
Ulfgeir
Hero
I think mine is from Scion 2e. I had talked to the GM, and planted the idea that my character's next title (you get a title every time you gain another lvl of legend) would be "Lady of the Wild Hunt", as in she had participated in a hunt. He thought a much better idea was that she would become their leader...
So, the characters were in Ireland. We had just finished another adventure,and was having fun at a pub near the hotel we stayed at. I heard hunting horns, and wolves. So I went out to investigate (of course without telling the others). I then met a bunch of wolves that was around 1.5 meters tall, and the leader (probably Herne), who said it was my time. I joined, and become a 3 meters tall wolf.. (measuring from the ground up to the shoulders when it stood on all 4 legs).. There we hunted down an ogre that was the leader of a criminal organization He was tough, but he became my chew-toy (that she channeled the full power of the Wild Hunt, while she fought him, probably didn't help). The hunt also took out the rest of his family, who were evil ogres, as well as his whole organisation. So crime in that part of Ireland will be much lower for some time...
My friends, who couldn't track me down, decided to leave the hotel and go back to America. (all but one of them). My character then showed up at the hotel 2 days later, all bloody, together with a guy she had picked up somewhere on the way back. Both were rather out of it, and had basically only sex on their minds. 2 days later, she wakes up wondering where she is, realizes that she is in her hotel room, and that she is not alone. everything is covered in blood. Her first though is "what the hell happened?". She sees that she is not hurt, the guy isn't hurt either, but he is whimpering that he can't participate in any more sex (she had much better stamina than he had). He has also a lot of bitemarks on him after 2 days of the wildest sex either one of them had had, and the guy will probably have some mental trauma. So my character goes up and showers, and then goes down to eat breakfast. All the old people at the hotel just look at her, in terrified silence, and slowly backed away as to not attract her attention...
The wild hunt was a primal thing, part fae, and the emotions that filled participants were a lust to hunt, and devour their prey, and extreme horny-ness... My character got hit hard by those emotions, and it took some time before she could get it out of her system. In the meantime she had basically considered everyone as prey, with almost 50-50 chance of her killing anyone she met and drinking their blood, or having wild sex with them..
She will not be hit that hard next time.
I will also put experience-points into getting so I can summon parts of the Wild Hunt. As an aftermath, large wolves have been spotted near where she lives. Part of the hunt keep track of her (she doesn't know that yet).
I am currently writing a short-story about that aftermath, from the viewpoint of a poor police-officer that has to investigate the dead criminals. He realizes that things are out of his jurisdiction, to put it mildly. The Wild Hunt follows its own rules, and does not care for mortal laws.
So, the characters were in Ireland. We had just finished another adventure,and was having fun at a pub near the hotel we stayed at. I heard hunting horns, and wolves. So I went out to investigate (of course without telling the others). I then met a bunch of wolves that was around 1.5 meters tall, and the leader (probably Herne), who said it was my time. I joined, and become a 3 meters tall wolf.. (measuring from the ground up to the shoulders when it stood on all 4 legs).. There we hunted down an ogre that was the leader of a criminal organization He was tough, but he became my chew-toy (that she channeled the full power of the Wild Hunt, while she fought him, probably didn't help). The hunt also took out the rest of his family, who were evil ogres, as well as his whole organisation. So crime in that part of Ireland will be much lower for some time...
My friends, who couldn't track me down, decided to leave the hotel and go back to America. (all but one of them). My character then showed up at the hotel 2 days later, all bloody, together with a guy she had picked up somewhere on the way back. Both were rather out of it, and had basically only sex on their minds. 2 days later, she wakes up wondering where she is, realizes that she is in her hotel room, and that she is not alone. everything is covered in blood. Her first though is "what the hell happened?". She sees that she is not hurt, the guy isn't hurt either, but he is whimpering that he can't participate in any more sex (she had much better stamina than he had). He has also a lot of bitemarks on him after 2 days of the wildest sex either one of them had had, and the guy will probably have some mental trauma. So my character goes up and showers, and then goes down to eat breakfast. All the old people at the hotel just look at her, in terrified silence, and slowly backed away as to not attract her attention...
The wild hunt was a primal thing, part fae, and the emotions that filled participants were a lust to hunt, and devour their prey, and extreme horny-ness... My character got hit hard by those emotions, and it took some time before she could get it out of her system. In the meantime she had basically considered everyone as prey, with almost 50-50 chance of her killing anyone she met and drinking their blood, or having wild sex with them..
She will not be hit that hard next time.
I will also put experience-points into getting so I can summon parts of the Wild Hunt. As an aftermath, large wolves have been spotted near where she lives. Part of the hunt keep track of her (she doesn't know that yet). I am currently writing a short-story about that aftermath, from the viewpoint of a poor police-officer that has to investigate the dead criminals. He realizes that things are out of his jurisdiction, to put it mildly. The Wild Hunt follows its own rules, and does not care for mortal laws.
