My experiences with last night's D&D Encounters

[Piratecat]

For folks who don't know, D&D Encounters is a WotC promotional campaign played every Wednesday for 12 weeks; you head into your local store with a 1st level PC and play one encounter in an Undermountain adventure. The thought is that since it's just 1-2 hours of time, it's easier to sneak away each week to go play. I ran across this at PAX East and thought I'd go in and try it. The cost at Your Move Games in Somerville MA was $2.

There were enough people to fill two tables in each slot (7pm and 9pm). I was lucky in that our DM was excellent, someone I already knew through Gospog. Our table was six people, four men and two women; one of the guys had never played a RPG of any type before (other than computer games like WOW and Baldur's Gate) but had wanted to give D&D a try. Everyone was friendly and fairly funny, a nice group of people.

This encounter featured non-human foes who couldn't speak. One thing that surprised me, though, is that folks weren't trying to role play within the group. That may be a side effect of tossing together six strangers.

The encounter itself was easier than I'd expected. We had a mini-skill challenge to figure out where we were headed in the dungeon, a fast fight in a sewer (six 1st lvl heroes against two fire beetles and a stirge), and then a good skill challenge to open a magically locked door. The DM handled the skill challenge in a satisfying way, allowing for player improvisation but with consequences for failure.

Overall? Good fun, even with the light role playing. I'd definitely do more of these. What have other people thought?

 

[mudbunny]

Glad to hear that you had lots of fun. If you have any ideas or thoughts on how to improve tthings, please either PM me or post them here, and I will pass them on to WotC.

 

[Piratecat]

Actually, they're doing a lot of things right. Quick character cards for new players? Check. A reason to keep returning each week? Check. Imaginative skill challenges? Check. Some, but not too much, tracking? Check.

My main quibble would be that I prefer villains (more roleplaying opportunities for the DM!) and this particular fight wasn't too thrilling, but that's certainly because it needed to go quickly enough to fit in the skill challenges. A reasonable tradeoff.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, I ran a D&D Encounters session last night. We only had three people in my group (there was another group that had played the two weeks previously together that had five), but I decided to go ahead anyway since the night's game was mostly skill challenges. It went well- one of the players had never played D&D before but always wanted to, another was an old hand and the third has just started playing in the last couple of months. A good diverse mix. We had a lot of fun, but the combat they had included a guard drake and it almost took them out- for a time, two of them were down! One of those guys was a beast master ranger, though, so his companion got to keep up the fight (along with the warlock). Once they eliminated its minion allies and the monk rolled a natural 20 on his death save and came to, the tide turned.

I enjoyed the two skill challenges, too- I ran them without formally announcing them, and the players really roleplayed their ways through them both. It was very cool, very fun- even though they failed the first challenge! (Actually, so did the other group that played at the same store last night...)

Seriously, though, my party could not get a break when it came to the dice luck. Almost every damage die they rolled was a 1 or 2; they rolled many, many low attacks; the whole night, they only rolled two natural 20s (one death save and one attack). Poor guys- my dice were doing fine.

 

[renau1g]

Yeah I'd prefer harder encounters/more villians as well. Again though it's hard in the time constraint, you can't put an n+4 encounter against them and expect to complete on time.

I suspect it's on the easier side to account for new players who don't understand the rules/power/tactics that some of us who've been playing for years know. Well done in bringing new players into the fold WOTC, I've heard a lot of that from anyone who's been at one.

 

[Baumi]

This is the second time that I heard about how great the Character Sheets (cards?) are. What is special about it and are they downloadable?

 

[Oryan77]

and two women;

HAHA, April Fools! You almost got me on this but I'm on alert today. Two women....hahahaha, oh that's classic!

 

[Piratecat]

HAHA, April Fools! You almost got me on this but I'm on alert today. Two women....hahahaha, oh that's classic!

You win points for funny. Although it is worth pointing out that between Sagiro's and my groups we have six female and seven male players. It didn't even strike me as unusual.

Baumi, the cards are well designed; about 8 1/2" by 5 1/2", glossy color double-sided cardstock, they have powers on the back and everything else on the front. It's a great example of how to make an easily read, easily understood character sheet. The only thing I dislike is that it lists trained skills only.

 

[Festivus]

PC, if you have missed the first two episodes, then you are missing a part of the story... one that will slowly unfold over the course of 12 weeks. I find that these are not very roleplay intensive, perhaps intentionally so (it's hard to get totally immersed in 45 minutes).

The fight part was up to the DM to construct. My group faced a pair of regenerating two headed rats. If I was able to run, my plan was to have a gel cube in a pit, with some treasure beneath it visible to the party (I think there was 12gp per player last session).

It would be interesting to rerun these as a series of 4 hour games (each part taking 4 hours) and see how it played out differently than broken up as it is now.

 

[Piratecat]

The fight part was up to the DM to construct. My group faced a pair of regenerating two headed rats. If I was able to run, my plan was to have a gel cube in a pit, with some treasure beneath it visible to the party (I think there was 12gp per player last session).

Really? Okay, that's even cooler. I had no idea that DMs were being allowed that sort of latitude. I approve.