IRL Loading Screen
Last night's D&D session did not go as planned. I wasn't entirely prepared, then even what preparedness I did have was thrown out the window about an hour in. Nevertheless, it seemed like the players had a fun time, and I'm not sure they even noticed the loading bar behind my eyes every time they asked a question.
Today we'll take a break from the world-building stream of consciousness for an unpacking of a rather unusual (for me) gaming session.
First, the backdrop: I'm running a homebrew game for a party of six. They just finished a dungeon and reached 4th level at the end of the previous session. That means they were at a sort of "checkpoint," ready to begin a new adventure arc. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy and hadn't come up with anything yet. As the day of the session dawned, I found myself beginning to panic, trying to figure out what to offer a newly un-anchored adventuring party.
About three hours before the game, I did have one helpful thought: the dungeon they had just finished had fairly little traditional loot, but did have some relics which could be valuable to the right buyer. This, I decided, would be my salvation: they would return to town, do a bit of shopping (as adventurers love to do), and then I'd have them discover that to sell their best loot they'd need to travel a couple of weeks south to the capital. I had just enough time to come up with a loose idea of some things which could happen on the road — just enough to keep them engaged for the duration of the session — and then I'd have something to work with to start prepping the next leg of the adventure. Basically, this session would be a sort of transition between two arcs.
Great!
So we started the session, and as expected, the players sold some of their more mundane findings and did a bit of shopping. However, we were probably less than an hour in when things went entirely differently than expected. See, I hadn't realized just how strapped for cash they already felt. Despite their plans to go to the capital to find a buyer, they also wanted to try and land some more cash before they left so they could finish the shopping they already had their sights set on.
They needed to wait a couple of days for some in-town business to wrap up before departing, which I foolishly believed we'd fast-forward through with some light downtime activity. No, they wanted to squeeze in a bit more adventuring so they could get some cash to spend before they left. So here I am, semi-prepared to provide the beginning of a journey, and instead I'm telling them about jobs on the public bulletin board.
At this point, I am completely pulling stuff out of my ass, not even knowing what the end of my own sentence will be when I start talking.
"We go and look at the bulletin board. Are there any jobs?" they ask.
"Yeah," I say, not even knowing what'll come out of my mouth next, "There are three jobs."
Wait, did I just tell them there are three jobs?! I can't create three adventures on the spot! Better make two of them unappealing...
"There's one that's basically requesting a couple of farm hands, there's one that's a bodyguard mission for a caravan headed [opposite direction they want to go], and..." I have no idea what's about to come out of my mouth. It turns out to be "a farmer on the outskirts of town says his barn is haunted and needs an exorcism."
Wait, what? They already fought incorporeal undead in the dungeon; a haunted barn will just be a boring repeat!
But of course they decide to go.
So while they're discussing how to do approach it, I'm half-listening while I simultaneously try to invent a scenario. They debate whether to go immediately (in the evening, since of course ghosts would show up at night) or in the morning when they're refreshed from their recent dungeoneering. They decide on the latter, and we begin the approach to the farm, which I describe to them as I create it in my head, all while simultaneously trying to decide what this scenario will actually be like.
During their dialogue with the farmer, I have an idea: maybe people are faking the haunting! Maybe there's a group of "reverse adventurers": instead of going out to where monsters are so they can kill them and take their stuff, they pretend to be monsters to lure in rookie adventurers so they can kill and loot them. Perfect! The players will be looking for signs of ghosts, and I'll ambush them with some level-appropriate humanoids from the back of the Monster Manual.
Just they're reaching the barn, I realize a flaw: the ambush would only reasonably be in place at night, but it's 9:00 in the morning. Oops. So while I'm asking for an Investigation check I start imagining how the bandits could have a hideout attached to the barn. They find a trapdoor into a wine cellar which has a tunnel to a cave where the bandits hide during the day. They fight the bandits, negotiate some good wine as payment from the farmer (and steal some more), sell some loot they got from the bandits, and finish the session satisfied with their various purchases, and I think maybe even felt proud that they picked the better of two available paths (night or day for the job) when in reality I was pulling the whole thing out of nowhere in real-time as they engaged it.
In the end, everyone left happy and now I have a direction for next time and some time to prep it. I feel like since this is a blog I should be trying to pull some sort of lesson out of this or something, but mostly I'm just relieved it worked out and surprised I was able to pull it off. I guess, uh, don't be afraid to wing it sometimes?
Well, anyway, that's all for now. Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
Today we'll take a break from the world-building stream of consciousness for an unpacking of a rather unusual (for me) gaming session.
First, the backdrop: I'm running a homebrew game for a party of six. They just finished a dungeon and reached 4th level at the end of the previous session. That means they were at a sort of "checkpoint," ready to begin a new adventure arc. Unfortunately, I've been pretty busy and hadn't come up with anything yet. As the day of the session dawned, I found myself beginning to panic, trying to figure out what to offer a newly un-anchored adventuring party.
About three hours before the game, I did have one helpful thought: the dungeon they had just finished had fairly little traditional loot, but did have some relics which could be valuable to the right buyer. This, I decided, would be my salvation: they would return to town, do a bit of shopping (as adventurers love to do), and then I'd have them discover that to sell their best loot they'd need to travel a couple of weeks south to the capital. I had just enough time to come up with a loose idea of some things which could happen on the road — just enough to keep them engaged for the duration of the session — and then I'd have something to work with to start prepping the next leg of the adventure. Basically, this session would be a sort of transition between two arcs.
Great!
So we started the session, and as expected, the players sold some of their more mundane findings and did a bit of shopping. However, we were probably less than an hour in when things went entirely differently than expected. See, I hadn't realized just how strapped for cash they already felt. Despite their plans to go to the capital to find a buyer, they also wanted to try and land some more cash before they left so they could finish the shopping they already had their sights set on.
They needed to wait a couple of days for some in-town business to wrap up before departing, which I foolishly believed we'd fast-forward through with some light downtime activity. No, they wanted to squeeze in a bit more adventuring so they could get some cash to spend before they left. So here I am, semi-prepared to provide the beginning of a journey, and instead I'm telling them about jobs on the public bulletin board.
At this point, I am completely pulling stuff out of my ass, not even knowing what the end of my own sentence will be when I start talking.
"We go and look at the bulletin board. Are there any jobs?" they ask.
"Yeah," I say, not even knowing what'll come out of my mouth next, "There are three jobs."
Wait, did I just tell them there are three jobs?! I can't create three adventures on the spot! Better make two of them unappealing...
"There's one that's basically requesting a couple of farm hands, there's one that's a bodyguard mission for a caravan headed [opposite direction they want to go], and..." I have no idea what's about to come out of my mouth. It turns out to be "a farmer on the outskirts of town says his barn is haunted and needs an exorcism."
Wait, what? They already fought incorporeal undead in the dungeon; a haunted barn will just be a boring repeat!
But of course they decide to go.
So while they're discussing how to do approach it, I'm half-listening while I simultaneously try to invent a scenario. They debate whether to go immediately (in the evening, since of course ghosts would show up at night) or in the morning when they're refreshed from their recent dungeoneering. They decide on the latter, and we begin the approach to the farm, which I describe to them as I create it in my head, all while simultaneously trying to decide what this scenario will actually be like.
During their dialogue with the farmer, I have an idea: maybe people are faking the haunting! Maybe there's a group of "reverse adventurers": instead of going out to where monsters are so they can kill them and take their stuff, they pretend to be monsters to lure in rookie adventurers so they can kill and loot them. Perfect! The players will be looking for signs of ghosts, and I'll ambush them with some level-appropriate humanoids from the back of the Monster Manual.
Just they're reaching the barn, I realize a flaw: the ambush would only reasonably be in place at night, but it's 9:00 in the morning. Oops. So while I'm asking for an Investigation check I start imagining how the bandits could have a hideout attached to the barn. They find a trapdoor into a wine cellar which has a tunnel to a cave where the bandits hide during the day. They fight the bandits, negotiate some good wine as payment from the farmer (and steal some more), sell some loot they got from the bandits, and finish the session satisfied with their various purchases, and I think maybe even felt proud that they picked the better of two available paths (night or day for the job) when in reality I was pulling the whole thing out of nowhere in real-time as they engaged it.
In the end, everyone left happy and now I have a direction for next time and some time to prep it. I feel like since this is a blog I should be trying to pull some sort of lesson out of this or something, but mostly I'm just relieved it worked out and surprised I was able to pull it off. I guess, uh, don't be afraid to wing it sometimes?
Well, anyway, that's all for now. Until next time, take care of each other, okay?
Oh man, I've had that experience. One of my PCs got 'Detect Thoughts' recently and now I on the spot have to come up with interesting motivations or backstories when they probe the mind of some enemy or someone who was just there to give some cryptic exposition or whatever.
ReplyDeleteThey've definitely taken off on some sidequest now that I absolutely made up on the spot as they interrogated some random bureaucrat who *should* have been totally unhelpful, but turned out to have to give them info because they could read his damn thoughts.
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