Happy Father’s Day all! Today’s post is all about my Dungeons & Dragons game earlier this week. It was great to get back together with friends this week to play D&D again. We have not been together as a group since the lockdowns ramped up early last summer. There were reunion hugs all around.
We did not jump straight back into the Mad Mage campaign. Instead, we treated this session as a reboot to become reacquainted with the PCs and the campaign so far. Some of my players are newer to the game than others, so the time set aside to read PC abilities and ask questions was helpful.
We also talked about PC motivations. Treating Mad Mage like a straight dungeon crawl creates a rather boring game, so I’m looking to put some of the story’s drive onto my players by knowing and playing to PC motivations. To help that along, we talked about how to apply their motivations in the game setting.
The bulk of the session was filled with mock encounters to get players back in the rhythm of actually playing their characters. I had the players provide some scenarios I could prepare ahead of time and randomized them.
They first encountered a carrion crawler nest with a gleaming gold helm upon the skull of a skeleton within. The rogue snuck forward in preparation for the tiefling casting darkness over the enormous worms, but she needed to move forward to do so. She crept a short distance into the room, then promptly turned around and shouted back at the rest of the party.
“Is this far enough?” Anakis asked them loudly.
This stealth check did not succeed, and the combat was on. While this distraction took place, Ashe the rogue sprinted forward, grabbed the helm, and rushed back to safety with it in hand.
The final battle of the evening was against some ankheg. Ashe and his player were feeling a little snarky at this point, and it did not end up working as well for him this time.
“I taste the dirt.” He says sarcastically.
“Roll me a con saving throw.”
“I roll a…”
“Poisoned.”
“13. You didn’t even wait for the number.”
*Evil grin. *
He also tried to move away from one of the ankheg, and I rolled a critical on the opportunity attack. That allowed me to do a fair amount of damage and disrupt his plans. He has a slippery character, so it was fun for me to catch him for once.
We get back to the campaign on our monthly cycle in July, so it will be fun to see how they continue to tackle the first level. I’m sure I will have more stories of cleverness and mishaps!
Tiffany Shearn 