D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[jasper]

Good, Bad, Weird, and I had to toss a player 10 mikes after he arrived. I started the Strahd campaign last night. I posting about for about a month. Got people interested. Got them to choose between two locations store or home. Problem player has already got on my nerves when I just had play with him as player. PP is also on heavy medical drugs due to health.
We had a session 0 by messenger where I laid down plot hooks, told them to work with each others what they will be playing.
But first crazy thing. My Crazy cousin show up with out blue about 20 before doors open. So I dealing with her. She is on heavy mental drugs. Gamers show up and at best she treated them like family. Some unwelcomed hugs. Then she had problems leaving because she was mentally not fully present. The gamers are socializing since some don't each other.
PP had minor family matters. But he did message me till 2 minutes before time. He had 3 hours to mention. Ok he running late. He arrives 90 minutes late. Does not have a pc ready because he need other resources. He had PHB. He had a session 0. His reply was I thought tonight was going to be session 0.
I ask about his drugs which leave him in a mental fog most of time. Strike and out and leave my house. A month to mention he want to use other sources. He could have grabbed me or other gamers at the store to help him. Said little in during the session 0 online session. Knew he was going to be late at least 2 or more hours. Show up 90 minutes wanting a session 0. And is a constant mental fog. NO.
insert lots of cuss words. I will be playing with the dude at the game store but not my house. One the reasons I quit playing 3.5E was people could not arrive on time.
The good. Radiare brought a flying tiefling into Barovia. Which we had fun roleplaying and he had fun watching the DM be uncomfortable.
The weird was a storm was moving through during the opening scenes and the thunder and lighting gave a great air to the game.

 

[Weiley31]

Well last session was a, I would assume, a proto/form of Session 0. I say that because it was the first time ever that two of my best bros for life are going to be playing DND for the very first time ever. My one bro specifically asked me to show him how to do a Character Sheet and explain to him the generation rules for Ability Scores. my best friend when showing him Roll 20 two weeks ago before the session, tried to explain to him Point Buy, but my one bro just wasn't getting it. Plus he prefers more the dice rolling as that's easier for him. So pretty much the entire session was just creating a Character.

One is going to be a Great Old One Drow Warlock that is taking the Tome pact boon. The other bro decided to be a Half-Elf Beast Conclave Ranger with a Panther. As the DM, I changed out the PHB Ranger with the Revised Ranger since it is technically better. We went over the skills and backgrounds with the Warlock being a Sage and the Revised Ranger being a Charlatan, which I found both as interesting choices.

Starting level is 3. Restricted to PHB Handbook races/backgrounds for now since they are starting off. Add-Ons will happen/become available once they get some sessions under the belt. Character Variant Features UA version in effect. Racial Feats or a Feat at Level 1 is enabled.

Warlock seems to be going for the Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast Invocation combo due to my best friend's prior suggestion in their Roll 20 campaign/tips. I allowed both to roll for HP with the option of rerolls if 1's happened or below average gains occur: They have the option to take the average gains should that happen AND if they didn't want to go for anything higher past that. The Warlock ended up with 23 HP and the Ranger got 40 HP after they rolled for their HP for the three levels.

I am allowing the Ranger the option to use the Mike Mearls Happy Hours' Whirling Blades as a unique Fighting Style option for Rangers only. I've tried to balance it out by have it make said Ranger pc able to make Two Attacks at the start (Default Attack+the Bonus Action attack with the second weapon with the Ability Modifier). At level 5 he'll gain the Extra Attack which will be the Third Attack, and then the Beast command attack for his conclave will become a "4th" Attack, meaning the Ranger will be doing four attacks after leveling up enough ala the fighter.

Since I'm only having these two play for now and not adding any other players in additional for this "campaign" and what not, I'm not worried about the Ranger pc stepping on the toes of the Fighter/Martial character because it seems like the Ranger is gonna be the only Martial part of the duo with the Warlock being the Arcane support. Although my one bro whose playing the Ranger pc did say "Wow my guy feels a little overpowered." We'll see how things turn out and adjust from there.

Editor's Note: I have already taken this into consideration and have begun planning out some extra stuff for the Warlock PC to make sure he doesn't trail behind in that regards and gets some cool stuff as well: Options including a Ring of Spell Rage which will allow the Warlock PC to use a Bonus Action to gain "Rage Damage/+2" to his Spell's damage rolls, a Ring that at certain Character Levels up will gain up to +1/+2/+3 extra Eldritch Invocations (thanks Mike Myler for coming up with that idea for an item) AND the option of perhaps gaining the use of a Pact Weapon. Again I'm fully aware that it maybe against the rules normally, but since these are going to be the only two players for now until we finish this and start a new one, nobody should get hurt feelings.*

I have already explained to both that every DM is different in regards to how things are played and that some DM's may play differently from other DMs. So nobody get used to how I'm doing things for this time and if they end up playing in another group and stuff. Especially if there is a new campaign down the line and we get additional players. Because I'm already hearing the peeps in the back on here yelling about favortism/what not.



There was a question during the proto Session 0 about what setting was being used: For now I'm gonna play it by ear but so far have been briefly drumming some stuff up. Everything may remain pretty lite on details with emergent play filling in some aspects as we go along and just get a few sessions under belt.

So far they are both pretty excited.

 

[Musing Mage]

With everyone in our circle double vaxxed, we returned to live play for my 1e campaign.

When last we played, the group had been TPK'd** by a false hydra, but scored a Pyrrhic victory by destroying its food source and ending the threat.

** two absent players from the adventure survived, but everyone at the table lost their characters.

So picking up 2 in-game years later, with a new group (plus one of the previous surviving players) for new adventures. I lay out several rumours of possible adventure for them to discuss, going heavy on the sandbox style for full player agency. One of said options was a sighting of a wyrmling green dragon, which if subdued and captured could bring a nice price.

So, our intrepid band of 1st level (and one 4th level monk) characters confidently state "It's only a baby, how tough can it be?" Or something to that effect.

Flash forward to one dead character, two in critical condition... no one able to travel and 4 days out from the nearest city. BUT, they did get their quarry although taking it alive ceased to be an option really early in the fight.

Part two this weekend, will our team make it home with the prize? The dice will decide!

 

[THEMNGMNT]

27th session in my Neverwinter campaign. Three PCs: human genie warlock, drow evoker wizard, half-orc vengeance paladin. Paladin at 6th level and the other two at 5th.

In this session, the PCs met a mysterious contact on a pier in Neverwinter. She ushered them into a small boat crewed by two polemen. In the middle of River Neverwinter she engaged in some major expositing, which planted the seeds for upcoming quests. More on that in future posts.

Unfortunately, the PCs had been followed to their rendezvous by agents of a cabal of aberrations which are infiltrating the Neverwinter region. The boat was attacked by a CR10 kraken and six sahuagin. It was a brutal, exciting fight. The paladin was flung overboard but used misty step to get back in the action. The warlock summoned a shadow blade and hit hard. The wizard dropped multiple fireballs but was eventually choked out by a tentacle.

As the wizard slipped into unconsciousness, the paladin and warlock did enough damage to the kraken to force it to withdraw...but it took the the wizard with it.

Next session: Rescue the wizard from the clutches of the kraken!

 

[Ogre Mage]

It was very successful! We destroyed the evil druids and twig blights infesting the Wizard of the Wines. It was not too difficult. Thodak and Fornn ripped through the twig blights while while Balore targeted the druids with nasty necromancy spells.

Afterward greedy Thodak helped themself to the wine. The wine was poisoned by the druids! Thodak's dwarven poison resistance failed and they started taking ongoing poison damage. I rolled my eyes and cast lesser restoration.

We stayed the night at the Wizards of the Wines and I prayed for the purify food and drink spell. The next morning I purified the wine of poison. Davian Martikov thanked us and said the the gems which magically powered the vineyards here had been stolen. The druids we fought had stolen one very recently and taken it to Yester Hill. Another had been taken some time ago to the ruins of Berez. We decided to go to Yester Hill first since it was closer and the gem had been stolen more recently. And we had already faced these druids and defeated them easily so we liked our odds.

We had made our first ally in Barovia -- Davian Martikov and his family. At the successful completion of this mission we leveled up to 4th level. We marched in the direction of Yester Hill.

Our Party:

Kinoka, Wood Elf Circle of Spores Druid
Fornn, Wood Elf Moon Druid
Kandle, Human Grave Domain Cleric
Luna, Human Twilight Domain Cleric
Thodak, Hill Dwarf Rune Knight Fighter
Balore, Tiefling Necromancer Wizard

 

[Richards]

It was a short session: we had to delay our normal start time from noon until 1:30 because my nephew had a picnic with his high school chorus class, and we had a hard stop at 4:30 because the other family we game with had a birthday party they had to go to. So I swapped the adventure I had originally planned to run today with the one that came after it, since I thought that one would only take us a couple of hours to run through (and I was correct, within 5 minutes).

So, traveling to the site of the next dream victim, the PCs met up with a young human wizard who'd set up a sideshow tent alongside the road. For the low cost of five silver pieces each, he offered to show them wondrous creatures they'd never seen before. Intrigued, they took him up on it (well, all for my nephew's bard, who waited outside the tent with the animals, guarding the wagon). The apprentice wizard used an elaborate magic staff he'd "borrowed" from his wizardly master, creating an image in the middle of the tent of a bunch of jungle plants and, eventually (after tuning the staff a bit), a pachycephalosaurus. This was a dinosaur from another entire continent that he was scrying upon with the powers of the staff. However, the image was pretty dark (it was night over on that continent), so after some complaints from the farmers who'd paid to see the show, the apprentice wizard tried fiddling with the staff to get a better picture. It worked, but only because he'd opened up a teleportation circle at the scene, such that the dinosaur and the plants surrounding it were suddenly right there in the tent with the ten commoners and four PCs.

So the villagers all scream in terror, which sets off the pachycephalosaurus in a panic, and before you know it he's crushed the head of one of the farmers and the commoners are all scrambling to find a way out of the tent. And then the three velociraptors who had been sneaking up on the pachycephalosaurus showed up....

After dealing with them, there were two more waves of "invaders" - a halfling mounted on a bipedal herbivorous dinosaur and the pair of deinonychi that had been chasing him. The PCs fought off the predators and then used a bunch of sign language (the halfling didn't know Common and none of the PCs spoke Halfling, having never seen one before - they're not present on the PCs' home continent) to get the halfling back into the circle inside the tent, where the apprentice wizard's master was able to return them back to their home continent (along with the corpses of the slain dinosaurs) once he'd been alerted to the mess his apprentice had caused.

Johnathan

 

[el-remmen]

Today was session #18 of my Revenants of Saltmarsh campaign, which is a remote only game with players in three different time zones - so scheduling can be a pain. Nevertheless, we made some progress. The PCs left Saltmarsh as spies/diplomats for the town prefect, deciding to go the overland route as the coastal route was likely watched by the Scarlet Brotherhood. On the way they had one hazard encounter, with the dwarven eldritch knight falling into a bog hole that was quickly filling with muck and water and the party working as a team to get him out and then, as they sought a place to camp they were beset by waves of bullywugs! First three, then six with a bullywug croaker, and finally KING GULPA-GOR on his giant toad mount! We had to call it mid-combat, but the dwarf is close to death - having rolled a 1 on his first death save after being swallowed by the toad. The toad spit him out, not liking his metal armor, but there is a decent chance he may die.

I may ask the player to start thinking about new character ideas, just in case!

 

[Yenrak]

Today we did the first part of “City on the Edge,” which is a Tomb of Annihilation affiliated mini-module. Took us about 2.5 hours. It’s for low-levels but my party is 8th level, so I had to up the encounters a lot. I was worried that they’d get TPK’d by the archmage I through at them at the end. Time Stop is a hellauva spelll when coupled with lightning bolts.

 

[Asisreo]

The players were hunting an owlbear into a nearby steppe. The steppes were covered in cockatrices, literally hundreds of them. They tried to tip-toe through them but a player messed up and started combat. Oh well, they're going to hang out overnight while one of their party members recover from the petrification.

Hopefully, the owlbear isn't nocturnal...? Oh, wait...

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Since my 1-20 5E campaign wrapped earlier this year, my main group and I have been taking some new systems for a spin. New to us, anyway. This week, we kicked off Night's Black Agents -- the vampire spy thriller powered by GUMSHOE that bills itself as "Jason Bourne vs Dracula".

We spent most of the session building characters, which is probably more complicated than it needs to be.

I dropped the newly-minted spies into a short scenario I created called "The Aleppo Target". It's meant to be the James Bond-esque cold open action sequence. After completing this intro, we'll segue into "Out of the House of Ashes", a scenario from the Zalozhniy Quartet campaign. That scenario is heavy on investigation and intrigue, which is why I thought we needed a hot start.

To set the mood I used some drone footage of Aleppo from YouTube. It worked well. The spies were assaulting a compound Delta Force-style to capture a Syrian warlord called The Butcher of Aleppo. They moved through the compound, taking out guards, and rerouting the CCTV cameras to their mobile phones. They soon discovered the Butcher was ready for them. Instead of finding the Butcher sleeping in his bed, they found a feeble old man wired to an explosive vest. Simultaneously, their helicopter evac came under RPG attack. And their handler was kidnapped from the safe house where she was orchestrating the entire op. On that cliffhanger I called the session.

NBA is built so that players can choose to automatically succeed if they spend enough points. The challenge comes from deciding if now is the best time to spend points, or if they're better saved for later. It'll be interesting to see how this feels over the course of a full adventure, but for now the players enjoyed the sense of ultra-competence.