Had another of my 1-hour semi-DnD sessions at work. For once, I had three players, but two of them were fellow staff. This was by design; the other adults are considering running games of their own, most likely as substitutes for mine. (I won't be at work next Thursday, for example.)
- Player 1: Student, playing a Level 3 druid with a chameleon familiar. (This is the same one who played the druid with a cat familiar in the displacer beast incident.)
- Player 2: Fellow staff with an arcane magic-user, displaced from her own world. (From the Walking Library incident.)
- Player 3: Fellow staff with college-educated magic-user and a powerful magic staff. First game of XD20 for her, but an experienced RPG player and game-master.
When playing games like this, a group dynamic helps enormously, especially when the players know the basic mechanics - not of specific rules, but the social mechanics of working together, searching for clues, and bouncing ideas off each other. This is why I like to draw in adults when I can, even in sillier games like this one.
The party (nominally led by Player 1, who had received a promotion after a previous session in which she rescued a chocolatier held prisoner by brownies), was informed, "There's a giant crocodile coming out of the sewers between Main Street and Taverner's Row! Go handle it!"
They arrived to find milling and fleeing civilians, a giant crocodile clambering out of a pothole, and some nervous City Guard desperately hoping that our heroines would bail them out of this mess.
Fairly quickly, a divergence in method developed. Player 1, peaceful and with the natural world her responsibility, was pitted against Player 3, who defaulted to the usual violent methods inherent in your average DnD encounter.
They discussed and explored the situation for a while. The Druid's familiar did its best to help sense the monster's mood (hungry), but she rolled badly on a communication attempt; the croc snapped at the poor lizard, whence it scampered back to its mistress and hid in her robes. Other spells the players tried included trapping it with vines (on a die roll we decided the nearby government buildings were covered with ivy) - they failed to hold it; and a cold spell to freeze the cold-blooded creature in its tracks - slowed it down but no more.
As they continued to discuss possibilities and the NPC guards started to panic, I suddenly demanded awareness and dodge checks. Something tentacled appeared out of the nearest manhole cover.
 |
| The situation at this point: - center: giant croc in pit - circles around croc: terrified guards - top: tentacled horror - "You": the players - upper right: government building - lower right: tavern |
The guards scattered, most of them heading for a nicely fortified government building; they spent the rest of the session firing arrows at the croc.
Player 1 tried to distract the croc, successfully in the sense that it couldn't decide where to go or what to eat first.
Player 2 generally supported the others, helping lift things or adding power to spells, and also tried her best to stop the tentacled squid-thing from ripping apart a nearby tavern.
Player 3 asked if there was methane in the sewer (there was), then dashed into the bar across the street and negotiated for a barrel of ale. Fine Dragon's Brew XXX, to be precise.
Her aim was not precise (her intent was to drop it into the sewer under the still trundling croc), but a high roll for effect definitely scorched and knocked out the croc. It also stunned the squid.
Unfortunately, it also caused a fuel-air explosion underground. Several more manhole covers disappeared into orbit, and fire belched out of every latrine in the area to set the buildings on fire.
The druid, encouraged and assisted by the others, managed to draw rain from the clouds overhead to douse the flames. Amid a fuming haze and the sound of wailing hand-cranked sirens and protests of the citizenry, the drenched party hauled the monsters off to the zoo for disposal.
Still, mission accomplished, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment