D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[THEMNGMNT]

100+ sessions into my Tyranny of Dragons/Scales of War mashup and the 5 player characters are 17th level. When the elf arcane trickster rogue was created, his player said the rogue had amnesia. He left it to me to conceive the rogue's true origin. So, I decided the rogue is actually the elven god of trickery in mortal form. This plot thread has been dangling for over 3 years. Only now, in this adventure, is it being resolved.

The session started with the PCs on the plane of Arvandor, outside the trickery god's sole temple, fighting an ancient green dragon with minions sent by Tiamat to stop them. The tiefling shadow sorcerer dropped a meteor swarm. For the first time. It did not disappoint. That was pretty much the end of the fight.

Inside the temple--the Temple of Mischief--the players found a nearly empty space with a single statue that resembled both the rogue and his twin sister. (She's his mortal enemy who he slew in a previous adventure, but whom he'll soon discover represents another aspect of himself.) Passing through a doorway they entered into what is basically a dream sequence that will reveal the origin and history of how the elven god became the arcane trickster rogue.

Next session: More dream sequences!

 

[Blue]

Last session I played in was really good. We've gone 1st thru 10th in the City-State of Vesta, an ancient Greek reskin of Ravnica. Anyway, we'd kicked over the bees hive and things were close to a civil war between the factions, with some factions we had allies trying to calm it down, as well as Athena's Legions (whom we belonged to, though in an A-Team like manner). However, our detractors were using us a a point to delegitimize the martial law that had been declared to stop the fighting because we were wanted criminals (framed) by Zeus and the legions were sheltering us.

So the last session ended with us asking for voluntary exile to allow the legion to hold Vesta together, and this one started with us outside the city-state for the first time. It's a completely new scale for us, and all of our allies and enemies are far away. And the DM didn't hold back. He's layering Theros on top of our homebrew reskin, and we're already embroiled in a plot by a Returned to collect the artifacts left behind by the gods to become divine. After an epic escape from their forces, we are sailing away with the dead and un-revivable (so far) body of the oracle he had come to slay (and succeeded in doing so), knowing of multiple divine artifacts he has - a lyre that allows him to summon monsters, a sword he killed the oracle with in a single blow, and a starry shroud, the same stars appearing on her death wound (and preventing her raising).

Just a very dramatic start to a whole new season of the campaign on a much bigger canvas.

 

[Umbran]

Our session today was... wet.

The bad guys were doing a major summoning at the waterfront, and we were pressed for time to stop them. They managed to call up a water elemental and a water weird before their spellcaster went down. We were worried, because we were nowhere near at top resources.

Luckily, the water elemental found our barbarian too much to swallow (the character didn't need to breathe, so couldn't be drowned, and was resistant to the bludgeoning damage it was dishing out). The water weird dragged me under, but I was wearing the party's cap of water breathing.

However, I was still in trouble, as the weird was dishing out a lot of damage, and my dice weren't with me - my attempts to break out of the grapple and restraint were pitiful. I decided to try change tactics and attack, though I'd be at disadvantage... And my dice blessed me.

It is a glorious thing to cast a smiting spell, and you swing at disadvantage... but roll a 16 and a 17! And then fall only one point short of max damage on the roll! I beat down the weird just as the other two party members finished off the elemental.

Soggy, but successful!

 

[Nod_Hero]

We had our session zero and session one of a new Dark Sun campaign.
It was vigorous, as our party faced down some bandits and all kinds of weird desert critters.

 

[Wasteland Knight]

Just finished a great session, except I killed off my new NPC within the first few minutes of the session.

The party has been doing a fair bit of work for the local temple of Tyr, so when the party was needed for an urgent task I created what I thought would be an interesting, long term recurring NPC.

We prepped for the VTT session with role playing via Discord. Session starts with a big combat, and my NPC takes a lucky crit from an enemy archer then fails her save against an amazingly rolled fireball from an enemy sorcerer. -15 hp before the end of the first round of her first combat, and she had yet to take an action..

RIP Sister Beatrice, Blessed of Tyr. I’m sure the party will put all of your potions to good use.

 

[Imaculata]

Our last session was cancelled. Complaints regarding one of our campaigns had been voiced on our Discord channel, after our DM refused to discuss it directly with us last week. Perhaps at that moment he was not in the right mind space for something to confrontational, so instead he send us a document with his thoughts, before we had a time to voice ours. This approach did not go over well. But, voice our complaints we did. Last sunday we talked it over. Not all of our issues with the campaign were directly aimed at the DM, although still a lot of them were.

Our biggest complaints were the railroading, the slowness of the sessions, and how our DM was prone to handing us a list of possible actions, instead of letting us think for ourselves. Being a DM myself, I try to be as constructive and positive as possible. I understand that the game can demand a lot of prep work, and it should never feel like work. I would be okay with playing less often, if this would improve the quality of the sessions. But we all have some doubts whether our DM really took our complaints to heart. He seemed more inclined to deflect, rather than listen. This has raised worries for the future of this particular campaign. In the end, we are all a group of friends who like playing D&D together. And we'd like to continue doing that. But lately the campaign has become a bit of a slog, and it feels as if neither the DM nor the players' hearts are into it.

It puzzles me a bit. I've never had any issues like this with any of my own campaigns. But it seems that with this particular DM, discussions like this come up every few months or so. Now some players feel like quiting this campaign entirely, which would be a shame. But honestly, if we all have doubts regarding whether any of this will improve in future sessions, then perhaps putting a stop to it is the best thing to do.

I'm curious to hear if others have been in similar situations like this...

 

[Wasteland Knight]

Our last session was cancelled. Complaints regarding one of our campaigns had been voiced on our Discord channel, after our DM refused to discuss it directly with us last week. Perhaps at that moment he was not in the right mind space for something to confrontational, so instead he send us a document with his thoughts, before we had a time to voice ours. This approach did not go over well. But, voice our complaints we did. Last sunday we talked it over. Not all of our issues with the campaign were directly aimed at the DM, although still a lot of them were.

Our biggest complaints were the railroading, the slowness of the sessions, and how our DM was prone to handing us a list of possible actions, instead of letting us think for ourselves. Being a DM myself, I try to be as constructive and positive as possible. I understand that the game can demand a lot of prep work, and it should never feel like work. I would be okay with playing less often, if this would improve the quality of the sessions. But we all have some doubts whether our DM really took our complaints to heart. He seemed more inclined to deflect, rather than listen. This has raised worries for the future of this particular campaign. In the end, we are all a group of friends who like playing D&D together. And we'd like to continue doing that. But lately the campaign has become a bit of a slog, and it feels as if neither the DM nor the players' hearts are into it.

It puzzles me a bit. I've never had any issues like this with any of my own campaigns. But it seems that with this particular DM, discussions like this come up every few months or so. Now some players feel like quiting this campaign entirely, which would be a shame. But honestly, if we all have doubts regarding whether any of this will improve in future sessions, then perhaps putting a stop to it is the best thing to do.

I'm curious to hear if others have been in similar situations like this...

Yes. From what you've said, it sounds like there is a core issue of expectations of GM vs. expectations of the players, but these issues have bubbled over and it's become personal.

If you as players have honestly and constructively raised your concerns and the GM ignores them, then it's probably time to stop this game. Maybe someone else GMs a different game, or you socialize for a while with non-TTRPG avenues. Because if it keeps going on without change, from experience it's going to end up with people leaving the game and possibly ending some friendships.

 

[jasper]

very interesting. As in two of the group want to turn to Kobold slavers. Had a player tear up because he could not handle the in game griping about his pc. I made popcorn.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

our last session was BANANAS.

through catacombs to a room with a narrow bridge over 60’ long to a dais/temple from which wights with longbows started nailing us.

On either side were pits FULL of ghouls. So my cleric 1/warlock 7 celestial patron blade pact warlock decides to run down the narrow bridge to engage the undead archers. Once there the first wight dropped his longbow, rolled well and shoved me into the ghoul pit.

the whole party used every resource to keep me alive. I used tomb of Levistus to live a few rounds.

I cast protection from good and evil and the Paladin threw sanctuary on me.

somehow I crawled out of the teeming pit after getting to a rope ladder with 6 hit points! no spells, spent. They pursued.

We took turns getting paralyzed and being drug and then subsequently dragging our paralyzed friends.

we left beaten to a pulp and pursued to the surface world. Every round was do or die. Any additional failure would have been a party wipe....

anyway, in case you wondered, falling into a pit of ghouls sucks even at our level.

had I beaten the wights athletics check it would have been a totally different game!

the whole day got shaped with one important roll...

 

[THEMNGMNT]

You know when you spend hours creating a finely tuned tactical combat encounter and your players negate it in one fell swoop? Yeah, that's what happened. I'm still raw about it...

This is my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup with three 4th level PCs. Rogue, fighter, wizard. The rogue's uncle has been kidnapped by the Xanathar Guild and is under interrogation.

I borrowed the Sodden Hold location from the Hall of Harsh Reflections, an old Dungeon adventure that's part of the Age of Worms campaign. It's a pretty cool map with a lot of varied terrain. I rekeyed the entire map and put together about five combat encounters that I thought would really test the PC's mettle. But the rogue's player had other ideas.

The first thing they did was walk up to the front door and claim they wanted to surrender. The rogue aced his Deception check. Once inside, they were told to put on manacles. They aced their Slight of Hand checks to only appear to have locked shut the manacles. Then they were escorted by five monstrous guards to the interrogation chamber where the rogue's uncle was held. Inside was a nothic, a gibbering mouther, a troll, and two grimlocks. The PCs were so heavily outnumbered that I started to worry about a TPK. But the rogue pulled out a magical potion and bluffed that it was flask of "pyromancer's fire" (think Game of Thrones) and if the creatures didn't follow his instructions precisely he would burn them all down. Once again, he aced the Deception check. The troll was terrified. The PCs grabbed the uncle, blocked the doorways behind them, cut down a few stray grimlocks, and fled into the sewers with nary a scratch.

They were thrilled.

I was not.

Next session: The lost lair of the Shadow Thieves!