D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Richards]

In last night's "Raiders of the Overreach" campaign session we were sent to a group of merfolk who knew the location of one of the last two Writhing Gates we need to take down. It was underwater, but before the merfolk would tell us its location they asked us to perform a task for them: rid a nearby shipwreck of the ghosts that were haunting it.

We managed to take care of that without too much trouble, but the main takeaway for my lizardfolk PC was the whole concept of there being a race of underwater creatures who, in his words, are part human, part food! He couldn't stop snickering every time he looked at a merman or a mermaid, wondering how they managed to resist eating their own delicious tails. (He was raised as a fisher-slave and sees most of life through the lens of how it relates to fish.)

Four sessions left to the campaign! Next time we'll be taking out the underwater Writhing Gate, then we'll have a session traveling to the hidden island where the last Writhing Gate lies, then a session traveling across the island to find the Writhing Gate, and then a final one where we take down the last Writhing Gate and fully sunder the connection between the Material Plane and the Dying One, an illithid Elder God we're destined to prevent from destroying the world.

Johnathan

 

[Older Beholder]

Following on from the session mentioned above, we had a player not show up so there were only two players and the DM this week. We kinda meta-gamed a bit by trying to clear out as many of the dragon cultists as we could (saving the ancient dragon for later when the other player can join us)

There was a vampire in the flying castle that we had encountered previously, we went back intent on revenge, but realized we don't really have the means to finish the job anyway (we've 'killed' him before but have no way of reaching his resting place) and he wasn't really aligned with the cultists so we talked it out and got some information from him in what was a fun encounter.

We then went and spoke to the Giants that run the castle who were happy to help us in the upcoming great battle if we clear out the rest of the dragons/cultists. We've got a ticking clock now so we've been trying to get as much done without resting. We did a bit more clearing out before ending a bit early.

 

[TarionzCousin]

The players are beginning to wonder if all these locked doors in the Banewarrens are locked for a reason...

Heh. I love the Banewarrens. It may be my favorite published dungeon ever. It has a good variety of monsters and puzzles, interesting NPC's to interrupt a simple delve, and a clever overall premise. I hope it goes well for you and your players.

 

[Bupp]

My players interrupted a group of werewolves trading extracted souls through a portal to the Far Realm. Had a new player join the group, and his 5th level monk was finding it difficult against the werewolves, but luckily (?) for him, a couple grell dropped down from the ceiling.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm running a one-shot Ravenloft called The Created, from 2nd edition adapted to 5e. I'm using every evil doll ever made in movies for the tokens, including Chucky, Annabelle, and even that Playstation dude. Forgot his name. It's surprising how angry eyebrows instantly makes someone evil.

 

[Blue]

Things went... slowly.

A number of sessions ago a party identified a goal. They were sidetracked by the plot of one of their enemies for two sessions though.

I had expected the party to go after an objective they wanted to do 3 sessions ago. They instead did clean up stuff on that side plot.

Then two sessions ago the invented more clean up they wanted to do, and spent half the sessions debating in character if they wanted to try to kill (again) the PC's evil uncle, or rouse the hearts of people and get him overthrown. The decide on the later. They decide to go to the capital, which is one of the most likely places to find him.

So this session I expected them to get there, make contact with the various factions that could help with this, all of which also had their own objectives which may or may not be acceptable to some members of the party.

I had given them a week and a half heads up about "hey, you have divination spells (they're 8th level), a folk hero, and other resources at your disposal, if you want to do any feeling out on they way there let's get that worked out before the session. The only response was that they wanted to do a Divination when a few days out to make sure he was in that capital.

So we start the session, and I ask them are they trying to go in stealth, are they trying to gather information which will raise their profile, are they trying to spread seeds against him which definitely will.

Which ended up sparking another large in-character debate, and them wanting to lightly RP out hitting the first settlement on the way so they can take the temperature of it to figure out what they wanted to do for the rest.

Okay, fine. We go through that. They decide to go mostly sneaky, but with some unobtrusive songs against the uncle and some information gathering. Okay, so all three.

We move on, and we're near the end of the session and I mention the divination. They confirm the uncle is there. And then do a question the next day of how can they get to the uncle unseen.

And that comes back around to if they wanted to kill him, it would have been better to try to brace him in his hunting lodge and not go to the capital. It breaks down into an argument where one is complainign that we're doing the worse combination of plans - bracing him at his stronghold with all of his guards and legal right to try and kill him. Another player is claiming that she didn't understand that they were going to get the people to dispose him, others saying that they wasted the trip to drum up support.

I'm just honestly boggled. It was a large, in-character discussion that lasted over an hour to attack him or overthrow him, and now they are effectively trying to do both, which are cutting in the way of each other as they can't both drum up support and remain totally unseen so he doesn't know they are coming.

It's like they wanted to try intrigue, but the murder-hobo vibe is overpowering their plans. And that's not this group normally.

 

[Richards]

Today's "Dreams of Erthe" session dealt with a group of orcs called "The Lost" who ride up out of the desert to raid the neighboring towns. The PCs helped fight off a giant banded lizard that had attacked the wagon of an elf wizard, then helped the elf unload the weapons he had in the wagon into a line on the ground. They were then charged with holding off the raiding orcs while the elf wizard performed the ritual that would turn the line of weapons into a living blade barrier spell that would slay the orcs. (This was particularly important to the wizard, as raiding orcs had been responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughter years before.) Unfortunately, the orcs got within throwing distance of their javelins as the wizard was finishing up the ritual, and as a result the living blade barrier spell was given the instructions of "Slay all the living" - the wizard was slain before he could finish the ritual with "orcs." As a result, the PC ended up fighting off the orcs while also staying out of range of the living spell; the two orc rangers (and their desert horses) found out the hard way just how dangerous the elf's vengeance was. After killing off the other orcs (four fighters, four barbarians, and an adept), they then had to take care of the living spell lest it continue its rampage on whatever innocents got in its way. And after that, they finally made it to the village where the next dreamer was trapped, a simpleton whose sleeping form was being taken advantage of by the innkeeper he had been working for (and who had been charging the townsfolk drinking in his bar a silver piece each to urinate on him in the stables where he'd been dragged). The PCs rescued him from his dream, took (nonlethal, although the fighter/wizard had to be talked out of killing him) revenge on the innkeeper, and set the formerly trapped dreamer up with a kindly elderly woman in town who agreed to look after him.

Naturally, I gave the adventure the title "Raiders of the Lost Orcs."

Johnathan

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Heh. I love the Banewarrens. It may be my favorite published dungeon ever. It has a good variety of monsters and puzzles, interesting NPC's to interrupt a simple delve, and a clever overall premise. I hope it goes well for you and your players.

Thank you. I read the adventure 15 years ago, it blew my mind, and now I'm finally able to play it. We're just now getting into the dungeoncrawl proper, so I'm incredibly curious to see how it goes.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

35th session of my Neverwinter campaign. Three 7th level characters: half-orc vengeance paladin, human genie warlock, drow evoker wizard.

The warlock plays her character like a rogue, and she's affiliated with the local thieves guild -- a confederation of honorable thieves known as The Key. (I made them up for this campaign. The Forgotten Realms has a lot of cool thieves guilds but virtually all of them are evil.) The Key's interests are under threat in a poor, dismal neighborhood called Greyveil. (For Neverwinter I'm using the map of Korvosa from Pathfinder, which is a lovely piece of art. The canon map of Neverwinter is somewhat dull. So I'm making up most of the geography of the city as we go.) The threat comes from a group of rogue drow known as the Night's Kiss (I borrowed this name from Mike Shea, the Lazy DM). Unknown to the players, the Night's Kiss are in service to a mind flayer with designs on the entire city. I'm essentially running a modified version of Hall of Harsh Reflections, an adventure from the Age of Worms adventure path in Dungeon magazine.

The last several sessions had a lot of skullduggery, and the player characters came out on the wrong side of it, so I wanted to start this session with action and a quick win. I told the players to roll initiative and dropped them straight into a battle with drow atop a bridge. The PCs made short work of the drow.

Their destination was an inn doubling as a Key safehouse called the Crooked House. Behind the bar was a fearsome half-orc. An agent of the Key. The paladin started to chat up the half-orc and to my surprise the players took to him immediately. Originally I had planned to make him a puppet of the mind flayer. But I quickly realized that there were better ways to use him. More on that in the next session...

Putting together some clues from the half-orc and the drow ambushers, the players deduced the location of the Night's Kiss lair. They paid for rooms in the Crooked House and began to plan their next moves.

Next session: Murder in the Crooked House!

 

[Asisreo]

Had a new-ish group play. I taught them a very important lesson: they're allowed to run.

Used the chase rules against an enemy that was faster than them but they had alot of distance and they were able to narrowly escape into their locked safe haven.

Of course, one took some damage. I didn't even attack him, the monster does passive damage, and it scared the crap out of the players. Good times. They leveled up because of that, though. One more level and I'll feel comfortable not holding back. For now, though, they're basically right where they started but stronger.