Suggestions for 10-person, 2-team Dark Sun arena adventure?

[Taed]

Tomorrow is Dark Sun Game Day and we have 5 hours blocked out, but unfortunately, we'll have about 8-12 people showing up and I'm the only DM. DMs are a precious commodity around here. We also have mostly newer players, nearly all with just 5-20 sessions of D&D under their belt.

Given that, I plan to try something new that I've never tried or played.

I'm going to split them up into two groups, the gladiators (martial PCs and maybe a healer) and the Veiled Alliance (arcane PCs and others). I made little slips of paper for each player to randomly draw which gives 3 sentences about who they are (VA/gladiator/slave/free), how they feel about their "side" (love it, it's OK, just in it for the money), and any backstory (sister killed, wants to buy yourself out of slavery). Additionally, one person on each team is a spy in the employ of the other side, but they must not be detected while working against their side.

I plan to use parts and maps from both the D&D Game Day "The Lost Cistern of Aravek" and from Free RPG Day "Bloodsand Arena", so it should be all new to the players, but still in keeping with the idea behind D&D Game Day. I like both of those adventures a lot, though, and plan to run them again for people on some future D&D session. So, this is not a slight against those modules.

I have 3 encounters in mind:

-- The first encounter uses the first map from "Cistern" and will start the VA team in the cave having a secret meeting. The gladiator team is tasked to raid the cave, capture them alive, and bring them back to Tyr for interrogation and trial. I think that the gladiator team should be able to do that, given a surprise round and close combat. If they don't, I'm not sure what to do (have reinforcements arrive with a sleeping-gas-bomb?).

-- The VA is of course found guilty and are sent to the arena, where they are expected to die, or enter slavery if they survive. That leads into the next two encounters.

-- The first arena battle from "Bloodsand Arena", where the goal is to collect the "coins" in a "capture the flag" style. It's just a warm-up for the crowd at the arena, so they've been told not to kill anyone under penalty of their own death.

-- The second arena battle from "Bloodsand Arena", where there's lots of cover from webbing and a few spiders to boot. This will be a battle to the death. However, if anyone dies too early, I'll have them pick up a different 1st-level pregen as an apprentice or someone from the crowd who decides to join the battle.

I had run the second arena battle about 2 months back when it first came out, and it was the best combat that we've ever played. So, I know that a revisit to the arena will be very popular.

My 9-year-old son (the youngest in our group of mostly 20-somethings) loves this idea, as he (a fighter) would love to do battle with another of our players (a wizard). A few folks will want to use their normal characters (who are 3rd/4th level), but we'll just Dark-Sun-ize them a bit.

I plan to seat the players on either side of a long table with each team on each side. I'll have them sit in intiative order per side, but we'll take turns going one person from each side.

There will be no monsters for me (the DM) to run, so I'll really just be setting up the narration and then acting as an arbitor.

I'll have each person make a nametag with character name, race, class, and AC to make combat faster.

Speeding up the combat with this large group is the key thing here, and any advice is welcomed. I'm also looking for suggestions about plot or encounters. I'm especially looking for advice about running a two-team large group like this.

Surely, someone has done this large-group, 2-team combat before?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Wik]

There are a few problems:

1) You're setting up multiple encounters which are set up with a predetermined outcome in mind. This is okay in single-party games, but in a game where there are two "sides", you're basically asking for problems. What happens if a PC dies in the first encounter?

2) Stage multiple encounters, or else PCs will just blow all their dailies at the start of a fight - PCs WILL go nova in these encounters. If you say up front that there will be two (or three) combats, they might reserve judgement.

3) Were it me, I'd stage the combats as two competitions, with each competition part combat and part non-combat (sort of like a capture the flag mission). Killing PCs in these encounters should not be the main goal. Each win grants a boon (or more) to the winning party; these boons are used ONLY in the last encounter.

4) Last encounter should be a battle royale - a plain ol' fight to the death.

5) A skill challenge to "win the favour of the crowd" could be cool to have ongoing during the fights, consisting of a sort of sliding scale. PCs could take skill checks as attack, move, or minor actions, with a success in a relevant skill upping their sides "favour" by a set amount - while lowering the enemy's by the same amount. At set levels, each member of that side gets an associated bonus (no penalties, though) to attack and damage. Things like Crits, natural ones, PCs going unconscious, and spending dailies in a round (the number should get higher the longer the fight goes on; spending a daily later in the fight should be rewarded) - all these should also change this "favour" meter.

6) Stress a friendly, party atmosphere at the table, and do it with PCs that the players have no connection to - this way, PC deaths won't be taken as harshly.

7) Have fun!

 

[FoolishFrost]

Something to keep in mind, though you may not have time to set it up:

Gladiators in Athas normally have patrons. Templars, merchants, nobles, and the like.

The arenas are used as a method for settling scores and sending messages to their allies and enemies. This happens in MANY different ways, but consider some of the following encounters.

• Someone tries to poison a character due in the arena to fight a female templar's mul gladiator. The mul does not know about it, but she expects to use him as her personal escort to a party later that evening, and does not want him getting "messed up" before the event. The poison is something to reduce the effectiveness of the player, as opposed to kill him, and the battle is only "To the Blood".
• During a fight, the player's opponent closes with him, and tries to pass him a small sealed scrollcase a few times. His only comment is "For your patron", and upon the player taking it, the next attack from the player instantly causes the opponent to fall to the ground defeated. If the player reads the scroll, his patron will know about it and will be very unhappy with the player. The scroll reads "You can deliver half to my estate as sundown."
• During a non-lethal match, it becomes apparent that another gladiator is trying to kill them. They lack subtlety or any real guile, and so end up trying to edge closer to the player and trying to chop them down as soon as they are within arms reach. They continue attacking even after the player is down, attempting to make sure the wounds are as lethal as possible. If it gets to this point, the other players will have to try and stop the carnage, since no one else will. It seems the player's patron annoyed a templar, who now wants to make a point about what happens to those who interfere in his business.

Remember! Dark sun is not just about survival in a hostile environment! It's also about nasty politics, betrayal, and self interest!

 

[Taed]

I ran this yesterday and it worked out pretty well. I did the 3 encounters that I mentioned, and addressed people's suggestions.

Everyone had a good time, though two people got pretty frustrated at parts.

The first frustration was in the "Coins in the Coffer" arena battle where each team had to get large heavy "coins" from the middle of the arena and then get them to their "goal" on each end, but direct (rolled-for) damage to any player was forbidden. There was lots of running around with the coins, but then there was tripping, stealing, and some good solutions of tying them together and dragging them. While dragging 3 away, the other team ran up, grabbed the rope and teleported away. I ruled that the rope only went with them. The teleporter was fine with that ruling, but the other team was annoyed (not at me) because they now had no rope. But what really annoyed them is that just before the buzzer, the score was tied, so one player ran to the other players' goal and pushed some of the coins out of the goal. "But that's not fair!", they cried. Of course it was. But nonetheless, when it was all done, that was a fun non-combat for all.

The final fight to the death went pretty well and everyone really got into the spirit of it. After one player went unconcious, but then rolled a "20" on his death save, every down player then got Coup de Drated. One player really got frustrated when he went down in the first round (he was the only ranged attack on that team, so the other team wisely focussed on him). But he got healed, then went down again, healed, then got to finally do some attacks, went down, healed, and didn't go down again until the end. Out of 8 PCs, there was only 1 survivor. It was a fun battle because there were good tactics being played on both sides.

The one thing that I would not repeat was the "spy" on each team. I'd probably do away with the spy altogether because one spy forgot they were a spy and the other spy didn't know how to act like a turncoat. If I kept the spy notion, I'd have to make it more prevalent, with everyone being informed that there was a spy on their side and on the other side and that they should try to root them out, but I think that would surely be too confusing.

So, overall, it was a very good session. It took about as long as expected (5 hours for the 3 encounters with 8 people), and everyone was very engaged and invested.

Thanks for the advice.