"And the Teen Library Adventures Continue..." Topic

Another session of D&D at the Teen Library.

Me, as DM: "Something large and heavy slams against the door you blocked. It shoves the barricade back, and a huge whiskered snout sticks through the door, sniffing. Another thud, and the door shoves wide open, A huge furry head comes through! It's an enormous weasel!"

Teen girl: "Awwwwww…"

I don't think I'm quite pulling off the intended terror for that moment.

…an enormous smart phone destroying weasel!!!!

Teen girl: "Screeeeeetch!"

Did the boys say, "let's kill it"?

Well, it's rather obvious that she has never seen a weasel hunt, or the carnage one is capable of inflicting. Time for the fighter to have his innards removed rather forcibly by the cute cuddly critter.;) Or show them a video of one hunting rabbits, they'll get the picture rather quickly.:)

Or you could have one of those change the tempo of the game because you have realized your players "didn't get it" and have the weasel run up snatch one of the players in its jaws and sprint off down the dungeon corridor. The snatched player is told that the weasel's teeth are hurting them but have not drawn blood, YET! This gives the snatched player reason to fear and perhaps begin to fight back. Meanwhile the players left in the room have to decide if they are going to pursue and attempt rescue of their fellow adventurer. Hopefully a mad dash down various corridors (resulting in the players getting deeper in the dungeon and lost) ensues.

If snatched player manages to get free of the giant weasel it drops the player and quickly disappears down a maze of corridors. (Perhaps leaving an easy to track blood trail?) Or, failing to get the weasel to drop them and beginning to take a fair amount of damage in return, the giant weasel arrives at the lair of its "master" and deposits its catch before its master's feet. After all this is a trained hunting giant weasel. The other party members arrive soon after and mayhem ensues.

The party ends up either captured and due to their obvious martial ability are sold to fight in the underground gladiatorial slave pits. Or having defeated the giant weasel's master, (and perhaps attendant guards) the giant weasel is grateful for being freed of such a cruel being and befriends the party. The Teen girl will be so pleased.

If it's not too late, perhaps they notice a limp dead goblin hanging from its jaws, might get your point across. Or a piece of one…arm, leg etc. hanging out of the mouth. Sort of like when your pet comes in from outside and drops a birds leg in your lap, cute and creepy all at the same time.

Perhaps you should add hungry, carnivorous, and loves human flesh to the description. Then perhaps she'll get it.

Yeah, it was supposed to be a dangerous moment, but they cleverly used magic to subdue the Giant Weasel (dang thing rolled a 3 on its save attempt…), which in the backstory was actually tame, kept as a pet by a wizard. Yes, it was about to snatch a PC for its dinner, but they won the initiative, used their brains, and prevented a bloody fight. Which was a good thing, as the party had just been badly mauled by a pack of ghouls.
As a DM, I prefer to reward smart thinking, however much it spoils my MUAHAHAHAHAHA moments.

But when the ranger asked "Can I ride the weasel?" my response was a firm, "No."

(Don't worry; there are other monstrous beasts left to terrorize them.)

Oh, as for the ghoul fight, quote a player, "Y'all, we're all gonna die in the first room!"
They nearly did.
And that's when I set the weasel on 'em.

As I've said before, you have some lucky students. And I love the story about the weasel.

"Ride the weasel" Nope, not going there.

So I take it the party has spared the giant weasel. What did they do with it?

BTW Parzival, I just started my last class for my MLIS which is on Digital Resources for Youths in Libraries. Part of our weekly assignments is using Twitter and other social media to explore how libraries are being creative to attract young people into libraries. I would love to "Tweet" about your D&D sessions and report about them. If you are interested in being "followed" via Tweeting or Facebook let me know. You can contact me by email. kimj.allman@outloook.com

I can give you more details via e-mail.

Thanks

What did they do with it?

They left the weasel asleep and moved on! Normally, that would be bad, but little do they know (yet) that the weasel gets involuntarily teleported about the dungeon, so when they go back to look for it, it will be gone, and won't be back for 22 hours (game time). The missing Giant Weasel should creep them out, as they are currently locked into the dungeon, following the only path they can find, and there is no way for the weasel to move past them without them seeing it… so, where did it go? Cue another MUAHAHAHAHA moment for me.

@kallman: I'll send you an e-mail from my work account the next time I'm in. In the meantime, our teen library Twitter is wcplteen14. We use Twitter and Instagram a lot, though honestly we find most of our connection with teens tends to be in person or word-of-mouth. Teens follow each other (and celebrities)— but not so much the local library (whodathunk?).

Next week: More surprises, more monsters, and just-how-nutty-was-this-wizard?

Excellent Parzival I will go ahead and follow your library via their Twitter account. Of course the information you just provided regarding how the teens connect with the library is important to my research. Thanks