Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 8004292" data-attributes="member: 6809274">Heavily modified version of Dragon of Icespire Keep. 12th session. Five player characters at 4th level.This is a group of players who are new to me and new to the game. They're all working film and television writers. I have a hard time getting a read on one of them in particular. She plays an elf beastmaster ranger. She seems to veer between a watcher who plays pretty passively, and a highly engaged storyteller. I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe she gets bored? Anyway, in this session, the storyteller came out. It was awesome.The characters were in Axeholm, an abandoned dwarven stronghold occupied by orcs. The half-orc vengeance paladin was pretending that the other characters were his prisoner and that he was seeking an alliance with the orcs. The orcs were seeking a magical spear in the dragon's hoard. With it, they would be able to rally numerous orc tribes to wipe Phandalin off the map. The half-orc said he would travel to Icespire Keep and return with the spear as a way of proving his loyalty to the orcs. The orc warchief decided that he would be joined by an orc champion and two orogs, all riding worgs. Did I mention that the warchief is the half-orc's father, and the two champions are his half-brothers?The players decided they would ambush the orcs as they made camp for the night. Meanwhile, the player of the ranger was trailing the other characters from a distance. She asked me if she could summon some ranger allies. Of course, I said. How do you do it? We discussed options and agreed that the rangers of the region had a network of stones they used to leave each other coded messages, as well as predetermined meeting points and ambush locations. So the characters led the orcs to one of those ambush locations -- a shallow cave that had a secret passage into the back that the ranger could use to flank the orcs.I told the ranger that she was joined by another ranger in the conclave who had spotted the coded message left on the stone. Who was this other ranger? What was their relationship? She decided that the other ranger was a drow and former rival who now owed her a debt. With that in mind, I decided the drow was a beastmaster mounted on a giant spider and wielding a magical bow. During the fight with the orcs and worgs, the drow ranger's giant spider was slain. The ranger player character was controlling the drow during combat...and when the drow's turn came up next she decided that the drow would attack her, seeing her responsible for the death of the spider companion. Then, she had her ranger parlay with the drow to de-escalate the fight, and asked the other player characters to heal the dying spider. At the end, ashamed of her behavior and seeking to make things right, the drow ranger loaned her Oathbow to the player character's ranger to slay the Dragon of Icespire Peak.(I'm intentionally giving the characters magic items that are too powerful for their level to give them a taste of what makes D&D so awesome.)Not only was the collaboration with this player a ton of fun but it solved a major problem. I've been using each quest to spotlight a different player character, explore their backstory, and reward them with a cool magic item. Unfortunately, we've not yet gotten to the ranger's spotlight quest, and may never do so based upon the choices the players are now making. I was feeling bad for the ranger's player and struggling to figure out how to give her more spotlight time. Tonight, she figured it out for me. I love it when my players surprise me.</blockquote>

Verification