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[Play Report] Large Party One-Shot
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<blockquote data-quote="redrick" data-source="post: 7325188" data-attributes="member: 6777696"><p><strong>Encounter 1: Exploring a ruined chapel</strong></p><p></p><p>The first main encounter was designed as an Exploration encounter. I like Exploration as an introduction to D&D — it spotlights the idea of seeing your character in a space and imagining real, concrete actions that that character can take. It engages the skill system, without getting bogged down in the more finicky combat features and action economy. The trick is to create an Exploration situation that engages all of the PCs, instead of a "follow the leader" scenario. I used a large single room with 3 alcoves, each with a different feature. The trick was to get from an ancient temple into a dungeon 100 feet below — after the stairway had collapsed. There was a brute strength approach — climbing straight down, and then a dumbwaiter mechanism with a winch that could be repaired. The area was also littered with little clues and tricks for learning more about the dungeon beneath. Not necessary, but potentially helpful.</p><p></p><p>This worked surprisingly well. By keeping all of the characters in one large room, we were able to fluidly split the party, putting small groups to work in different areas, while keeping everyone within shouting distance. This allowed me to keep all actions in turn order, moving around the table to check in with each player on what their character was doing. This way, every player got a feel for their character's abilities, and there was enough for every character to be doing something different. The experience was helped by a creative group of players, and the experienced players stepped up in a big way to help facilitate things, without telling new players how to play their characters. (My one big request at the outset.)</p><p></p><p>My first big flaw was making the "end-game" of this encounter too prolonged. The brute force method was legitimately dangerous — my hope was that players would either reinforce the climb, or rely on the smarts method of going down the dumb-waiter, but I made the only control mechanism <em>on the top floor</em> so that one character would need to climb down no matter what. As a result, way more players ended up climbing down. I had probably set the conditions a little too aggressively — an easy check for every turn's worth of movement speed. I had put the first few characters through harrowing descents, with high stakes and near-death, and didn't feel right hand-waving the last couple of characters to go down.</p><p></p><p>The pros: Every player got spotlight time on their character, and there were opportunities for a variety of different skills and proficiencies to come into play. (Languages, tool proficiencies, deciphering ancient texts, athletics, acrobatics.) Characters got to interact in small groups with other PCs, helping to flesh out some character relationships.</p><p>Cons: Encounter slightly overstayed its welcome, chose not to include good mechanisms for wrapping up the encounter once players had sufficiently explored. (This may not have been as much of a problem with a smaller party.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="redrick, post: 7325188, member: 6777696"] [B]Encounter 1: Exploring a ruined chapel[/B] The first main encounter was designed as an Exploration encounter. I like Exploration as an introduction to D&D — it spotlights the idea of seeing your character in a space and imagining real, concrete actions that that character can take. It engages the skill system, without getting bogged down in the more finicky combat features and action economy. The trick is to create an Exploration situation that engages all of the PCs, instead of a "follow the leader" scenario. I used a large single room with 3 alcoves, each with a different feature. The trick was to get from an ancient temple into a dungeon 100 feet below — after the stairway had collapsed. There was a brute strength approach — climbing straight down, and then a dumbwaiter mechanism with a winch that could be repaired. The area was also littered with little clues and tricks for learning more about the dungeon beneath. Not necessary, but potentially helpful. This worked surprisingly well. By keeping all of the characters in one large room, we were able to fluidly split the party, putting small groups to work in different areas, while keeping everyone within shouting distance. This allowed me to keep all actions in turn order, moving around the table to check in with each player on what their character was doing. This way, every player got a feel for their character's abilities, and there was enough for every character to be doing something different. The experience was helped by a creative group of players, and the experienced players stepped up in a big way to help facilitate things, without telling new players how to play their characters. (My one big request at the outset.) My first big flaw was making the "end-game" of this encounter too prolonged. The brute force method was legitimately dangerous — my hope was that players would either reinforce the climb, or rely on the smarts method of going down the dumb-waiter, but I made the only control mechanism [I]on the top floor[/I] so that one character would need to climb down no matter what. As a result, way more players ended up climbing down. I had probably set the conditions a little too aggressively — an easy check for every turn's worth of movement speed. I had put the first few characters through harrowing descents, with high stakes and near-death, and didn't feel right hand-waving the last couple of characters to go down. The pros: Every player got spotlight time on their character, and there were opportunities for a variety of different skills and proficiencies to come into play. (Languages, tool proficiencies, deciphering ancient texts, athletics, acrobatics.) Characters got to interact in small groups with other PCs, helping to flesh out some character relationships. Cons: Encounter slightly overstayed its welcome, chose not to include good mechanisms for wrapping up the encounter once players had sufficiently explored. (This may not have been as much of a problem with a smaller party.) [/QUOTE]
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