Underlabyrinth DnD session 1
Mar. 20th, 2019 04:51 pmRandom snippets from the first game. The group bravely/greedily volunteered to venture into the Underlabyrinth, and find the South Mines which have mysteriously disappeared from their usual place in the labyrinth, hopefully soon enough to rescue the people working them at the time.
Logistical issues with the venue meant we weren't able to finish a proper delve, but it went reasonably well anyway. We couldn't find a good venue so will try playing as our house, which is hopefully fine now we've all met each other a couple of times, but wouldn't be good for a new group.
I was very pleased the way the flavour of a mysterious, shifting, subterranean labyrinth let me adjust things on the fly sometimes, and the mechanics for navigating from one "place" to another worked very well, giving the players a feeling of exploration and agency but always with some doubt. I need to tweak that to make it slightly smoother, but I think I know what I need.
Everyone including me was still getting used to the mechanics, but I managed to keep things moving and I think everyone started to get to know their character and how the commonly-relevant rules worked. I think I dropped the ball a couple of times when people wanted to do things I didn't quite know what helpful response to give and I'm hoping they'll have more of a chance next time, but most characters managed to do their thing.
The Cat Bard made good use of his climbing and jumping ability and leapt around the room, keeping out of range of trouble and throwing helpful spells onto allies. He had to dive into melee to try to rescue one character, and we had the "Attack of opportunity thwack! Yowl of outrage and cat is suddenly on the other side of the room".
The Shifty Ex-wizard-assistant goblin made an excellent job mapping the labyrinth and peppering enemies with crossbow bolts, dodging from stalagmite to stalagmite.
The Ex-Thief With a Mysterious Backstory took point on lockpicking and trapfinding with a concentration of the relevant skills, but constantly had to work round a unlucky hitpoint rolls.
The Druid did some good investigating via animals of nearby threats, and handled half the front line combat, but hopefully will get a bit more of a chance to shine next time.
The Grizzled Drunken Ronin showed off to good effect as one of the strongest fighters, and dramatically sucking the blood out of a target creature, or something, but the party survived the combat with normal attacks before any his exotic abilities came into play. I hope they will feature prominently in future fights too.
I've good ideas what the characters might find in future, both immediately, and relationships they might develop in downtime if they want. The "adventure in game time, research/investigate/shop in downtime" seems to work reasonably, although I will try to have some character building encounters in game time too.
Everyone heard rumours suggesting potential entanglements, dangers, or side missions, and took some of them up, and sensibly steered waaaaaaaaay clear of a couple of dangerous sounding ones that ended up close together.
Logistical issues with the venue meant we weren't able to finish a proper delve, but it went reasonably well anyway. We couldn't find a good venue so will try playing as our house, which is hopefully fine now we've all met each other a couple of times, but wouldn't be good for a new group.
I was very pleased the way the flavour of a mysterious, shifting, subterranean labyrinth let me adjust things on the fly sometimes, and the mechanics for navigating from one "place" to another worked very well, giving the players a feeling of exploration and agency but always with some doubt. I need to tweak that to make it slightly smoother, but I think I know what I need.
Everyone including me was still getting used to the mechanics, but I managed to keep things moving and I think everyone started to get to know their character and how the commonly-relevant rules worked. I think I dropped the ball a couple of times when people wanted to do things I didn't quite know what helpful response to give and I'm hoping they'll have more of a chance next time, but most characters managed to do their thing.
The Cat Bard made good use of his climbing and jumping ability and leapt around the room, keeping out of range of trouble and throwing helpful spells onto allies. He had to dive into melee to try to rescue one character, and we had the "Attack of opportunity thwack! Yowl of outrage and cat is suddenly on the other side of the room".
The Shifty Ex-wizard-assistant goblin made an excellent job mapping the labyrinth and peppering enemies with crossbow bolts, dodging from stalagmite to stalagmite.
The Ex-Thief With a Mysterious Backstory took point on lockpicking and trapfinding with a concentration of the relevant skills, but constantly had to work round a unlucky hitpoint rolls.
The Druid did some good investigating via animals of nearby threats, and handled half the front line combat, but hopefully will get a bit more of a chance to shine next time.
The Grizzled Drunken Ronin showed off to good effect as one of the strongest fighters, and dramatically sucking the blood out of a target creature, or something, but the party survived the combat with normal attacks before any his exotic abilities came into play. I hope they will feature prominently in future fights too.
I've good ideas what the characters might find in future, both immediately, and relationships they might develop in downtime if they want. The "adventure in game time, research/investigate/shop in downtime" seems to work reasonably, although I will try to have some character building encounters in game time too.
Everyone heard rumours suggesting potential entanglements, dangers, or side missions, and took some of them up, and sensibly steered waaaaaaaaay clear of a couple of dangerous sounding ones that ended up close together.