aboyd
Explorer
In the end, earlier today I sat my kids down at the table and said, "I have to run a D&D game in 3 hours. I want to invent a module, right now." We all brainstormed, covering a battlemat with an organic mind map, then voted on the best idea. From there we filled 3 battlemats with a progressive illusion (each mat was of the same area, but at a different "level" of illusion effect). So each room appeared 3 times (once per battlemat), and we re-described them depending on what suited the illusion. We drew up DCs for each room that went progressively from impossible to nearly automatic.
It was a small village (reality), with a purple worm winding through the buildings and all the villagers swallowed inside it (shadow illusion), and appearing like a keep to all who pass by (illusion).
And then my players arrived! We handed out pre-generated 6th level characters. The players chose the fighter (half-orc, monkey grip, power attack, doing about 25 HP damage per hit), the ranger (triple shot with a bow), and the cleric (persistent spell, used to gain Ice Axe; probably not optimal, but cool).
They wandered through the illusory keep, fighting gargoyles (villagers), and then they were attacked by a table and chairs (villagers), found a secret thing that clued them in, and started to disbelieve. They switched to the map of the purple worm, and realized they were surrounded by slugs (villagers) that aid the purple worm with digestion. The slugs began to crawl over the PCs, "digesting" them. After slaughtering half the village and making TERRIBLE rolls to disbelieve, they finally saw through it. Since the illusion was shadow, it still had substance, and they worked with the villagers to hack their way out. At that point we switched to the map of the village, and swapped all the slug minis for minis of kids & moms & bartenders & so on, and they faced down the villain behind it all.
Took about 3.5 hours from start to finish. Not terrible. One of the players suggested we write it up and put it on rpgnow. So I think we did OK!
Thank you all very much.
It was a small village (reality), with a purple worm winding through the buildings and all the villagers swallowed inside it (shadow illusion), and appearing like a keep to all who pass by (illusion).
And then my players arrived! We handed out pre-generated 6th level characters. The players chose the fighter (half-orc, monkey grip, power attack, doing about 25 HP damage per hit), the ranger (triple shot with a bow), and the cleric (persistent spell, used to gain Ice Axe; probably not optimal, but cool).
They wandered through the illusory keep, fighting gargoyles (villagers), and then they were attacked by a table and chairs (villagers), found a secret thing that clued them in, and started to disbelieve. They switched to the map of the purple worm, and realized they were surrounded by slugs (villagers) that aid the purple worm with digestion. The slugs began to crawl over the PCs, "digesting" them. After slaughtering half the village and making TERRIBLE rolls to disbelieve, they finally saw through it. Since the illusion was shadow, it still had substance, and they worked with the villagers to hack their way out. At that point we switched to the map of the village, and swapped all the slug minis for minis of kids & moms & bartenders & so on, and they faced down the villain behind it all.
Took about 3.5 hours from start to finish. Not terrible. One of the players suggested we write it up and put it on rpgnow. So I think we did OK!
Thank you all very much.
