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Message: <blockquote data-quote="plecostomus" data-source="post: 9795966" data-attributes="member: 7040041">I was going to try and respond to specific parts of the OP, but I kind of have the reverse situation. I don't know what playing old D&D is like, aside from one time we played Tomb of Horrors as a dream sequence using the DCC system.So instead, I'll just tell you about my last session as a player in a 5E game. My entire group went crazy for this session and got super stoked at the ending. You tell me if it sounds appealing. Or what it's missing, I guess. I will tell you upfront...this session had zero combat. We just got back from a marathon of fights in the Outer Planes.Here's the session (2.5 hours):<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> Our Level 11 party lands our magic boat at a party member's home city, which is occupied by a bunch of Pelor clerics. The clerics are itching to burn the city down to rid it of demonic influence. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The party chooses to negotiate with the clerics. My character is undead, and the clerics have understandably been hostile to him in the past. I suggest he just stays on our boat and investigates some other phenomena in the area. The party wants him at the negotiations though, so we sneak into the city to obtain a disguise for him.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">A cleric stands guard at the gate to the city. My character attempts to sneak past and trips on a cobble and falls over in his plate armor directly in front of the cleric. The fighter covers for him by using a rune to paralyze(?) the cleric and we run off into the city while the cleric is busy being a statue.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">To get a disguise, my character needs a fresh corpse. Initially the party thinks they can just sneak my character into a crypt with some other corpses that are being carried in, but they find out there's a cleric purifying each corpse on its way. We finally abandon the disguise plan and collect some information about the status of the city instead.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">We return to the gate to leave, and the cleric we got past the first time is now accompanied by 10 other clerics, who are investigating our previous security breach.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">This time, the fighter pulls down her hood and reveals she is an aasimar. The clerics are all impressed. The fighter demands the clerics bring their leader to the gate for negotiations in 2 hours and they agree. Meanwhile, our wizard uses Dimension Door to get my character back outside.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">With 2 hours to kill, my character suggests we investigate the giant solar weapon the clerics have stationed outside the city. This is what they will use to burn it down if negotiations fail.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The party member who grew up here says she knows a cave that can get us close to the weapon. From there, her and the fighter investigate the weapon, while my character distracts the guards by revealing his undead nature to them and then running away. The wizard sneaks back out through the cave and recovers our ship, which she uses to pick up my character at the end of a nearby cliff. My character casts Blade Barrier both to keep the clerics from pursuing him onto the cliff, and to flag the wizard down.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Of the 2 party members who go to investigate the weapon, 1 tries to figure out how it works. The fighter however just starts hacking at the ritual circle surrounding the weapon. At one point the DM had the fighter roll a 1d100 and then said "OK...you guys don't both explode as [fighter] is breaking the ritual circle." Instead, a big crystal fell out of the weapon. The 2 of them ran back to regroup at the ship.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The party discusses whether or not we should steal the crystal, which is clearly needed to power the weapon. We also try to decide how quiet we should be about it. We think about what the consequences could be for stealing the crystal with complete stealth- someone points out the clerics may then think someone from the city stole it. My character recommends a public theft, and maybe we can use the crystal as leverage for the negotiations too!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">So we steal the crystal publicly. This isn't difficult. We abandon stealth, fly up in our (magic) ship, and yoink the crystal out of the destroyed ritual circle.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The cleric Inquisitor, who had been on his way to the negotiations, sees us prancing around in our ship with his crystal and uses Divine Intervention to summon a effigy of Pelor. He declares that the betrayers and the corrupt will be burnt, which we assume means us, but we notice the effigy is actually smiling at the city.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The fighter is already talking about using what we know about Pelor and these clerics to turn the effigy on its creator instead...but we'll have to try that next session.</li> </ol>Pretty much everything that happened here was character-driven, from the initial point of the mission being to rescue a party member's hometown, and then leveraging elements of our backgrounds to get past problems (or cause them), or making choices that then resulted in NPC reactions and consequences. The reason the clerics are there in the first place is because we asked them for help with a demon in the city. At the time, we didn't know that they were hardliners whose leader is called an Inquisitor.* *Actually my character knew, but he is also a hardliner cleric and he was okay with it. He was sort of hoping the Pelor clerics would torch the place while we were elsewhere. That didn't happen, so now he's firmly back on the side of "oh yeah let's stop these guys".</blockquote>

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