D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[jasper]

Yesterday was a pleasure and a pain. The pain. We had discussed before Christmas about doing an all day game session for the new year. We ALL agreed Jan 2 at Noon to finish up the Chapter 2 of Icewind Dale. Monday I posted the Game reminder on Facebook and phone chat.
Saturday. Two people finally mention they couldn't make at noon but at 5 PM. So I had to scramble and contact the others.
The funny, the strict time person OVERSLEPT and was late.
The pleasure. The early people we played Knights of Dinner Table Orcs at the Gate, and Road Kill Rally. Everyone wants to play them again but want someone else to known the rules too. We had cold cuts. And my wife deep fried WHOLE wings for snackage.
I also shift some things around Icewind Dale. A Wooly Mammoth Mafia is going to muscle into Nine Towns Big Time. The Awaken mammoth shook down the pcs for 20 gp.

 

[Richards]

I had something similar happen, in that on Friday we had decided on having a game session today (we're trying to crank out as many as we can during the Christmas break between two families who are otherwise quarantined, because once the two kids go back to school that's it for us until school gets out), and I got email notification yesterday that the other family was canceling. So we might get a session in on Wednesday night (in one campaign) and we might get a session in this coming Saturday (in the other campaign), but that'll likely be it until May or June. Bummer, and no explanation given for the sudden cancellation.

Johnathan

 

[Blue]

Running for my kids and niece & nephew. I've described it as a "teaching campaign" and am making sure to throw a lot of different types of things at them to learn from, and afterwards pulling back the curtain some to talk about it. Like their first dungeon crawl, how I did a magician's force, how I (mostly) ensured one of them would get diseased by death dogs so they would have to search out the Witch of the Woods, etc.

Anyway, I figured I'd runa module for them, since normally everything I do is homebrew. I had recently seen a recommendation for "Stolen for Stitches" on DMsguild, which billed itself as a 3-hour adventure for levels 5-10. They have four level four characters but adjusting encounter deadliness is easy.

Well, they're about four hours into it and about 25% of the way done. I don't say that as any slight on the module - as a resolution-focused one-shot I can easily see the listed three hours. But my group is very heavy on RP and also very easily distracted (ah, the joys of ADHD). Though since I run (and play) heavy on RP myself that's not something I can "blame" on them.

Again it's interesting watching the differences between what I would expect from veteran players and new ones. For instance there's a time sensitivity to the hook, but they found it out when arriving in Mirepool late in the evening. Still, they decided to go out immediately - three of the four have darkvision. (Going to get a bit vague to preserve the module.) They accomplished part of the objective and encounters an NPC who could help them, but turned back. Now, it was very much the emotional load of the partial objective, and it actually hit two of the characters right in their backstories/call-to-adventure so they wanted to return what they could to the town ASAP. And then, once there and because they were badly hurt, they rested for the night.

I would have either expected them to set out in the morning in the first place, when everyone could see, or if they were worried about time pressure to go out in the evening to continue to push forward. Actually what they did works out to be pretty smart tactically - they will be refreshed in the morning and have a lead which should make up for the time spent traveling back.

On the other hand, one thing that I wouldn't say is different than veteran players is the quality of roleplay. I don't know if they just had a lot more exposure to it via various things on the internet but they all have well developed personalities, show emotions, do things in character that aren't always the smartest, and just RP the heck out of everything. It took me a number of years playing to get to what they do now. It's a real blast to run for them.

 

[Mallus]

Out last session was almost three weeks ago, let's see if I can remember...

1. We successfully retreated out of the troll-and-necromancer-infested sewers beneath the capital city. Covered in the effluvia produced by a diet heavily reliant upon herring (we're in pseudo-Sweden). We didn't get much treasure, but we did get a necromancer's corpse to interrogate.

2. We took a side job; promising to investigate a group of missing pilgrims, lost on their way to a shrine to Odin or somesuch in the nearby mountains.

3. We hit upon an idea for a business. A hireling subscription service called Lootercrate. Or, rather, Lutecrate, because we're in pseudo-Sweden.

4. We magically charmed a theater critic. For business, not pleasure. Or spite. We also suggested he name his next work "I am Curious (Yeller)". It's about a beloved lost pet...

5. We spoke with the dead. Slowly, since my cleric only gets 2 questions/day at 5th level. We discovered the evil Northern Necromancers are prepared to make war... as soon as they acquire a precious item they seek: the only copy of the Torah in all the northlands.

Which, coincidentally enough, my character is also seeking. He's trying to learn more about his religion, which he converted to in extremis while being kidnaped by Vikings.

 

[Blue]

Humorous addendum from last session:

As they are running up to a Giant Crocodile (same Challenge rating as a Troll) at night, my fashion-conscious players:

Half-Elf Sorlock: What color is the crocodile?
DM: Grey. You can't see colors in darkvision.
action happens

Eladrin Bard: What color is the crocodile?!
DM: Grey. You can't see colors in darkvision.
action happens

*Dragonborn Barbarian runs up with the everburning torch.
Sorlock & Bard in unison: What color is the crocodile?!!

 

[Weiley31]

Well it's been forever since our last session due to I guess Covid and trying to align everybody's work schedule in a way where everybody is not working on our usual game session on Tuesday nights.

With that being said, if I'm to be super honest about it, was an extreme letdown. Especially with such a build from the last couple of sessions leading to said critical moment of this session that was supposed to happen. The only positive of that session, despite me being late due to the pizza delivery person not showing up four hours later after ordering said pizza, was that I got a whole free pizza given to me for the late inconvenience by the pizza shop owner. So I brought that to the session for everybody to snack on in order to make up for said lateness.

To clarify, the issue didn't stem from the fact that I was late, which the group assured me it wasn't, but from the fact that the DM just kinda handwaved an entire Important Major encounter with one of the major NPCs of the section we were in. He's a great DM and all and I know there are some days where sometimes we just don't feel it. But the DM just wanted to hangout with the group so that's why he didn't cancel and we just had a super short session. And I don't mind at all hanging out with the gang and doing stuff that isn't DND. I'm just saying that I wished the entire thing could be redone again, properly and give the encounter the proper happening it deserved. I'll even take the DMpc taking out said important NPC as a cutscene thing again if it was redone.

 

[Nod_Hero]

"The Deliverers" (the party name for our War of the Burning Sky campaign) went up against a half-dozen monks and some kind of human/manta ray hybrid-abomination thing.
The manta monster thing was ripping us up pretty good (the saving throws against stunning strikes were very below average) so it was a frustrating fight until Scratch (Goblin Gunslinger) scored two critical hits against the manta monster in the same turn and took it down.
Once Namadicus (Loxodon Cobalt Soul Monk), Kursk (Warforged Forge Cleric), and Nigami (Kobold Draconic Sorcerer) could focus fire on the monks and start knocking them unconscious (they were being dominated by some off-scene BBEG) the tide turned and we won the battle.
After that we took on some Ettins and finally found the entrance to the lair of the BBEG and entered.

Spoiler

Inside was a bunch of vats and growth pods things. As one would expect, stuff started cracking and we barricaded ourselves behind some double doors across the room, listening to the sounds of glass breaking and unknown creatures groaning as we called the session to a close...

 

[jasper]

I am back in FRACK HIGH SCHOOL and that's okay. My Tuesday group move locations on me at short notice but thank the gawds for GPS. One unsocialized kitty. 8 players all trickling in. One girl friend who want to watch but didn't. Two guys interested in the girl friend and not paying attention. And wrestling. Too small tables shoved together. And people pulling crazy moves. I thought I was going to have a TPK. But some got wise. But I have recognized my Tuesday group is half casual.

 

[Richards]

We played another session in our 3.5 Raiders of the Overreach campaign tonight. This one was kind of out there: we rode in a tricked-out Apparatus of Kwalish through a pool of liquid mithral, passing through a submerged planar gate and into Dwarven Hell, where we fought our way past Huge hellfire elementals and a half-fiend dwarven fighter to free the Mithral Mage, a lich who was the arch-nemesis in our previous campaign. But the PCs in this campaign know nothing about his past exploits and freed him from where he had been imprisoned (the intention had been for him to be stuck there in Dwarven Hell forever - we just botched that up good time and our previous campaign's PCs never did learn how he had escaped from Dwarven Hell in the first place) because he figures prominently in a prophecy that says he might be able to imprison the Dying One, the still-alive severed head of an illithid Elder God floating around on the Astral Plane and trying to destroy the world. So no pressure on us or anything - especially when one of the five PCs is a secret adherent of the Dying One, agreeing to serve him in an effort to make life easier on herself.

My lizardfolk PC got dropped from his normal 110 hp down to 6 hp in three rounds. Huge hellfire elementals are tough! (On the plus side, he got to eat his own charred, sloughed-off scales after getting healed back up to full hit points by our gnomish cleric once we were done fighting the elementals. His assessment: smoky, with a slight aftertaste of desperation.)

Johnathan

 

[corwyn77]

"The Deliverers" (the party name for our War of the Burning Sky campaign) went up against a half-dozen monks and some kind of human/manta ray hybrid-abomination thing.
The manta monster thing was ripping us up pretty good (the saving throws against stunning strikes were very below average) so it was a frustrating fight until Scratch (Goblin Gunslinger) scored two critical hits against the manta monster in the same turn and took it down.
Once Namadicus (Loxodon Cobalt Soul Monk), Kursk (Warforged Forge Cleric), and Nigami (Kobold Draconic Sorcerer) could focus fire on the monks and start knocking them unconscious (they were being dominated by some off-scene BBEG) the tide turned and we won the battle.
After that we took on some Ettins and finally found the entrance to the lair of the BBEG and entered.

Spoiler

Inside was a bunch of vats and growth pods things. As one would expect, stuff started cracking and we barricaded ourselves behind some double doors across the room, listening to the sounds of glass breaking and unknown creatures groaning as we called the session to a close...

I remember that map from running Wotbs years ago in 4e; good luck.