Dungeons and Dragons Reflections 6/8/19

As seems to be convention, my Dungeons & Dragons game today went entirely off the rails from the very beginning. The players made it to their destination alright, since there were no encounters on the way, but then immediately missed the plot hooks that I had planned.

This is not unexpected, but it does mean that I was on the back foot for most of the game.

I felt like I had a good balance of events during this game, despite not following the plan. There wasn't any regular combat, but we made up for it by having pseudo-combat encounters where the players got the drop on their enemies and eliminated them before we could get into combat.

I've noticed that my players have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. This is a little frustrating, but they will face consequences for it in the future. The fact that they were knighted by the king of the region has made them literally insufferable.

It didn't help that the party members with better judgement had to dip out early or weren't able to make it. I tried to add an NPC who could guide them along the procedure that they were supposed to be following, but they didn't take to her and I don't believe in forcing players into things. Since nothing they did was tremendously atrocious (in terms of derailing the plot; they definitely broke many laws), I'm fine with seeing where it winds up going.

I will say that I am enjoying Dungeons & Dragons more as I continue to run it. Some of this is that I'm using Fantasy Grounds, which is pretty fun and easy.

I tried to give players agency by permitting the use of skills as much as possible, though I also let the Druid shape-shift to advance the plot without requiring a roll. I find that when one relies less on rules, the story tends to flow better.

I was a little bit surprised because the players knew that the Arcane Academy held their pathway to leveling up, but they chose not to train there. This wouldn't have long-term consequences by itself, but they may have played their hands too soon with the mayor of the town. They've gotten themselves involved on the wrong side of a conspiracy. Fortunately, I think they'll be able to recover. There's always a sort of process when players aren't aware of what sort of game it is and they don't take it seriously enough until it reaches a certain point, so I don't want to destroy them for not being super-serious and realizing the danger they're in. A lot of side-characters are going to die, though.

Once the stakes increase the game should follow the narrative path better. Right now, there are lots of fun little points where players have inserted themselves right at the very start of various plot lines. I'm finding it interesting that Markus of Irondwell, who was originally a minor character, is quickly shaping up to play a larger role.

I don't change the universe in real time to spite my players, since I think that's cheap, but I do sometimes. Lots in certain directions. Right now, the players are definitely setting themselves up to get in the fight with the guy.

Quick summary of the events:

The campaign map; right now most of these places have not been explored.

The players took Arndwen, their charge, to Hivesgate. Once they arrived, the city was locked down due to a murder. They showed their insignia to the guards at the gate, indicating that they're knights, and were let in. However, they were given the wrong directions to reach the Arcane Academy. Instead, they were led toward an ambush. They were rescued from their fate by a mysterious woman, a fortune teller who had observed them as they entered town.

They lost track of the woman after she led them to the Arcane Academy safely. There, one of the party members was struck by an arrow fired over the academy walls. They delivered Andrew to his tutor, refusing to take the bait to go into the Ambush again. This is actually a little bit of undue credit for them, since they did not realize that that was the original intention of the arrow.

Well waiting in a common room for Arndwen be set up with his tutor, and the bard to recover his healing spell which he had used on himself, they met Karata, an elven sellsword who introduced herself as one of Ilidar's agents (Ilidar being the king's spymaster). They talked briefly, then went their separate ways. The players wanted to investigate the mayoral mansion, since it was the mayor's daughter who Had been murdered. Karata had warned them that it may have been a human sacrifice, not a murder, so before heading to the mansion they wanted to track down one of the men who had tried to ambush them.

Succeeding in their efforts, they ambushed the ambusher in the house he was sharing with two other mercenaries as an ersatz barracks. They breached the building, using an eldritch blast and a chaos bolt to take out two of the mercenaries before they were in any personal risk. However, the surviving mercenary was not one of the ones with involved in the ambush, which put a wrench in their plans. They bribed him to be an informant, then left to check the manor out.

They were denied entry, because the mayor had officially closed off access due to his time of mourning. The party said they were going to be staying at a different inn than they actually planned on staying in, because they were suspicious about the guards' intention, and they observed the fact that several men showed up to ambush them at that inn.

At that point, I called the session. There was some talk of trying to counter-ambush the ambushers, despite their advantage in numbers and strength, while others wanted to return to the manor and see if it was left undefended. In the end, with players absent, I decided that it was best to hold off until more players could participate in the decision-making.