D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[ccs]

I'm sorry you had that experience. That sucks. I'd hate to be the one to tell him, too.

Oh, I've no problem telling him. Just the DM said he'd do it.
I'm of the opinion that we should skip telling him, & let him waste the time/gas/etc getting there to a non-existent game. He's got to show up at some point to collect his minis/books/etc (stuff we all just leave at the hosts rather than lug back & forth), but no reason it has to be at his convenience....

 

[Imaculata]

My last session dragged on and on. I got the impression that the DM hadn't prepared anything, and was trying to drag out the session so we never got to the part that required prep. It was a long boring slog with nothing to do, and the DM dragging us into scene after scene of endless boring filler.

Friendly advise to other DM's:

If this happens to you, don't do what our DM did. Either wing it, or honestly come clean to your group that you didn't prepare anything. We can skip a session this week, its fine. But we have better things to do with our time.

 

[ART!]

My group has been gaming together weekly since January 2017. We went virtual at the end of March. In the past month or two, sometimes a couple of people would get together and join the game virtually from one of their homes. There was one session where the group gamed outside, distanced, but I could make it to that game. I went to attend another outdoor session, but it was "too hot", so the host moved the game inside. I went home, because screw that.

It had been almost 6 months since I'd hung out with my gaming friends face-to-face, and especially very recently I could tell that I really, really needed that.

This past Friday, four of us got together outside, distanced, and joined the game virtually on the host's desktop which they had set up outside. It got kind of cold out as the sun went down, but I didn't care because OMG I had a great time. Just thinking about it now is kind of thrilling.

So, I'll be doing more of that.

 

[Bitbrain]

Eberron campaign ended on a high note. Thanks to the players:

• New Cyre was declared a fully independent city-state.
• Merrix d’Cannith won the power struggle within House Cannith.
• The ir’Tain family got the crown after Boranel died in his sleep.
• The Church of the Silver Flame has fully replaced the Sovereign Host as the dominant faith in Khorvaire.

Everyone made it out alive.

• The orc cleric was named a living saint by the Church of the Silver Flame. She’s also the chief spiritual advisor in New Cyre.
• The cyran necromancer became a lich and spends most of his time bolstering New Cyre’s defenses with undead. He’s currently trying to build a golem out of dragon bones.
• The vadalis “tech”lock has brought Cannith and Vadalis into alliance. On his encouragement, the two houses are working on combining experimental Cannith cybernetics with Vadalis magebred creatures.
• The khoravar sailor run a business where he transports explorers to and from Xen’Drik. After seeing half of Eston blow itself to obsidian fragments from the party’s final mission to the Mournland, he has sworn to NEVER go near the place ever again.

One of my players wants to try his hand at DMing. On Sunday, I’m gonna be playing a Half-Orc War Cleric!

And after his game is finished, I’ll be introducing that group of players to the dying world of Athas...

 

[Wasteland Knight]

Last session was incredibly fun.

My PCs were hired to infiltrate an abandoned Dwarven underground fortress that is now being used by Hobgoblin slavers to rescue a specific individual. Lots of good roleplaying and top notch tactics during the raid, and the PCs infiltrated quite far into the ruins, quickly and quietly eliminating patrols and guards as they went.

They've found the prisoner they were after, but the alarm has been raised. While they have the principal they were sent to find, plus a few extras, they've discovered there are children held hostage in another area.

My highly mercenary, Neutral aligned, "low risk, high reward" band has decided, with some fun roleplaying, that in fact there are some things they just can't let slide.

Now they're gearing up to fight their way to the children's location, rescue them and then make a run for the exit.

 

[Cadence]

The adventure of two fighters (eldritch knights) and a wizard (bladesinger) [played by three 10-12 yo's] continues, with the session starting with them leveling to 4th. One of the three played in half dozen sessions of B/X before starting this 5e game; for the other two these are their first characters. Playing two hours, once a week, and we're probably just past a dozen sessions in.

Accompanied by their long-time Kobold henchmen Ko, they're exploring a castle where a bunch of Kobolds are apparently raising a smallish red dragon. Under control, and with good planning early on, they got some information from a few inhabitants (the elder Kobold grandmother is not at all amused by some dragonborn that have taken over recently, and the Myconoids in the basement will at least hide them if needed). With that in hand, they decided to return during the daytime when more denizens would be asleep (they originally snuck in at night to have more cover).

Discretion then took some time off the next morning as they decided to attack a guard on a balcony instead of sneaking in. A horn blew and they skedaddled. And then discretion went completely offline for two of them. When a huge group of short bow and crossbow wielding creatures came to search the woods, two of the party members decided to lay an ambush from the treetops.

Next time we get to see if #3 can arrange a rescue. (We also had the first serious discussion earlier in the night about how it works if one of them dies and that they'll need to roll up a new character. One of them had two failed death saves before being taken prisoner at the end).

 

[Umbran]

Going to play my most recent D&D session was... the usual ritual.

As in, it ended on a cliffhanger as the PCs, who had already had one major fight, had to charge across a village to stop the Priests of Talos from summoning... something.

But, that was a couple of weeks ago. Last night, I played a session of Space:1889, using Fate Accelerated as the engine. It left me... ansty.

The party was exploring the jungles of Venus, and we had to deal with a dimetrodon driven violently mad with pain as it was slowly digested by the caustic secretions of Venusian ants. Oh, and a haunted farmhouse. Because what you you really need while trying to hunker down and not be dissolved alive is... a vengeful ghost.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. Player characters are 4th level. In the last session, the PCs explored an abandoned scriptorium and secured a magical stone that contained a record of every tome that has passed through. They believe this stone will help them learn more about the secret plots of a rogue illithid that's an agent of the Xanathar. They took the stone to the mentor of the wizard PC, who swapped it out for a counterfeit version. Then they took the counterfeit to the unsavory wizard of the Arcane Brotherhood that had originally hired them to retrieve the stone. The wizard gave them several adventure hooks...for the future.

The fighter and rogue PCs are agents of the Shadow Thieves. A couple adventures back, they were tasked with infiltrating a private jail and eliminating a prisoner within--a traitor to the Shadow Thieves. Unfortunately, the traitor escaped. Off camera, she has joined up with the Xanathar Guild. The Xanathar now moves into open warfare with the Shadow Thieves, attacking their hidden lairs across Waterdeep. The rogue PC learns that his uncle has been taken captive. Using intel from an old adventure, they uncover a Xanathar hideout in Dock Ward. (I'm using the Sodden Hold from a Paizo-era issue of Dungeon magazine.) Perhaps the uncle can be found within...

Next up: Into the Sodden Hold!

 

[THEMNGMNT]

100+ sessions into my Tyranny of Dragons/Scales of War campaign, if you can call it that. Basically, there are evil dragons with schemes that need thwarting, but I'm making up a lot of it as we go. Player characters are 17th level.

In this session, they used a magical artifact to resurrect several slain allies. We have a house rule that resurrection magic can only be used on PCs. NPCs require an artifact or quest to bring back to life. This is a good house rule. You should use it. It makes life and death a bit more meaningful at high levels.

The artifact permanently drained a point of Constitution from the living individual that used it. So the beastmaster ranger, vengeance paladin, and arcane trickster rogue all lost a point of Con this session. That's a big deal!

Among those brought back to life were Vajra Safahr, the Blackstaff. Also: the elven queen of the High Forest. The rogue gave an amazing speech when this happened. Also: the father of the ranger, who revealed that the ranger's mother is a silver dragon. (Rescuing her is the next adventure.) Finally, the paladin of Ilmater was presented with a moral choice...would he bring back to life an enemy -- Dagult, Open Lord of Waterdeep? Dagult has been revealed as the high priest of the Cult of Tiamat...but the players only discovered this after they were responsible for his arbitrary, summary execution. So the question in front of the paladin was this: He swore an oath to Ilmater to relieve suffering. But do only the innocent deserve this? Or do the guilty deserve it as well? Yeah, heady stuff. Taking up the artifact, the paladin sacrificed a point of Con to bring a villain back to life. Dagult, now alive, was led away in chains. As reward for his moral awakening, Ilmater transformed the paladin's sword into a holy avenger.

The session ended with the PCs travelling to Arvandor, to a lost temple of the elven god of trickery (whom one of the characters might just be) guarded by the minions of Tiamat.

Next session: An ancient green dragon!

 

[DND_Reborn]

Sigh... a PC failed his saves and was turned into an abyssal wretch by a sibrex.

After another PC had already been turned into a shadow by a shadow dragon, and our NPC is missing, the party is down to 4 and facing grim realities. We do now know if we are strong enough to venture forth and rescue our captured comrade or if we should leave and regroup. Of course, we might not even be able to leave.

The evil archmage Zelligar the Unknown is toying with us. We have 16 hours left of the original 48 to find our comrade and rescue her or we will be forced to admit defeat, be cast away from his island fortress, and leave our comrade forever to her fate in his vile clutches.

So close to success and yet so close to failure. What evils still await us in this deathtrap we find ourselves in? The situation is bleak--dare I say it... hopeless?