D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Eyes of Nine]

We are making pretty good progress in FoF and CoS. I have been doing recaps and wanted to get a little buffer of sessions before I start posting online. I will probably start with FoF. Also, for those that follow my recaps, would you be interested in seeing the Dungeon World recaps or do you prefer D&D?

DW recaps please.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

In the DCC game I'm in, the funnel has concluded! One of my four starting peasants has survived, and reached first level!

EnWorld really needs a "Huzzah" emoji.

But since it lacks one...

 

[Nebulous]

I own Dungeon World but have never played it. The more I read about how to play it, the more spun I get. So I'd love to read about your experience.

Looking forward to Forge of Fury!

DW is quite fun, although the canned Cinder Queen scenario I'm running is VERY close to DnD and doesn't utilize the whole DW concept of "play to see what happens". The onus is really on the GM to come up with stuff on the fly even moreso than DnD. DnD relies on the dice to determine outcomes, and DW does too, but the GM has to radically interpret those dice rolls again and again and again.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

DW is quite fun, although the canned Cinder Queen scenario I'm running is VERY close to DnD and doesn't utilize the whole DW concept of "play to see what happens". The onus is really on the GM to come up with stuff on the fly even moreso than DnD. DnD relies on the dice to determine outcomes, and DW does too, but the GM has to radically interpret those dice rolls again and again and again.

It sounds exhausting. Is it worth the extra effort?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Second session of a new campaign that's a mashup of Dragon Heist with the Deck of Many Things. The premise is that the fortune is the result of a draw from the Deck. To open the vault and claim the fortune you have to collect the scattered cards, reassemble the Deck, and draw at least one card.

There are three players. One is new to D&D, one has about ten sessions under his belt, and one is a salty veteran. They're playing a wizard, rogue, and fighter. These 1st level characters earned enough XP to hit 2nd level at the end of the session.

The characters were working their way through an abandoned estate occupied by boggles and magically animated furniture. They managed to overcome the boggles (which can be challenging if properly played -- and really should be CR 1/4 and not CR 1/8). The rug of smothering (CR 2) was brutal, as I knew it would be. It nearly killed a character.

The players eventually cleared the estate and found the boggles' hoard, an odd mix of treasure and trash. Among the hoard was the playing card they had been hired to acquire. On the playing card was an illustration of a throne. They took the card to the wizard's mentor, a mage at Blackstaff Tower, who identified it as a the Throne card from the Deck of Many Things. Only the veteran player was familiar with the Deck. His curiosity was definitely peaked at that revelation. The noobs don't really understand what they're getting into.

The session ended with the players debating whether or not to keep the card or give it to the mysterious patron that hired them.

 

[Nebulous]

It sounds exhausting. Is it worth the extra effort?

It's worth it for a different play experience. I don't think I would want to run DW exclusively though.

 

[the Jester]

I ran my game last night and it was awesome.... in a harrowing way.

The pcs had ended the session before trying to get a short rest, but had been interrupted. They kept trying and were interrupted again... and went in hot pursuit of the last bad guy, a ghoul, who had fled and fetched a vampire spawn. The pcs were all out of spell slots except for one of the druids (this is a party of five, four of whom are casters), and were pretty wounded, low on Hit Dice, and two of them already had had their max hps reduced by a previous encounter with a vampire spawn.

After laying the ghoul and spawn low, they were even more depleted- and almost tried to rest in the same location again, before wisely concluding that they'd end up killed that way. They retreated to a room that they could barricade, but something came along and tried to force its way in, then retreated when it failed, and they decided to get out before it returned with reinforcements.

They left the dungeon they're in and managed to get to safety, only to almost get killed by a random encounter before they finally got to get their rest in.

Two days later, refreshed and recuperated, they went back in to the dungeon, and that's pretty much where we ended, on the cusp of another encounter.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Whiskey soaked and often we were lost but in the end it was a heck of a lot of fun as we move through Storm King. Tonight my S&W game is back on!

 

[Nebulous]

I'm prepping for CoS today. They're about to reach Vallaki, which has GOT to be one of the craziest most complex scenarios I've seen in a DnD game. There are so many people and NPCs and moving parts, I feel like I'm reading a couple chapters from a George Martin novel. I'm following a Reddit walkthrough that parses it out and makes it more manageable. I'm also adding several new maps not included in the core book, like a town square, the toy shop, and the church. There's no combat encounter in the toy shop, but I couldn't help myself, the visual of having weird toys piled everywhere was too much for me to resist.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

It sounds exhausting. Is it worth the extra effort?

It requires MUCH LESS PREP; and my kids loved it. It was fine, but I'm ok with seat of the pants coming up with stuff, especially in a D&D type fantasy world. If your jam is to spend a lot of time designing things in advance and having everything prepared; would be tougher.