"Knock Knock! Who's There? Teen Adventurers! Uh... What?" Topic
6 Posts
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Parzival | 09 Jun 2018 12:12 p.m. PST |
Last Wednesday in the Library, the Intro to D&D program had its second session of the primary adventure (after a brief "where are all my players?"moment last week that resulted in an alternative improv adventure for the two that showed up…). The plot is the standard "rescue the friend kidnapped by goblins" trope with a necromantic plot thrown in. The session began with a combat sequence left over from the first meeting. Fairly quickly dispatched, and the team follows the tracks to the goblin hideout, which features the standard crudely made yet solid wood door into a hillside cavern. ("Intro to D&D" is all about tropes.) One player wants to rush the door and batter it in with his axe. The others talk him down, and instead decide…to knock! (Knock? Who knocks on the door of a dungeon?!?) Okay, well, maybe they can be persuasive, because they weren't joking. (Unfortunately, these kids were completely oblivious when I said "Land Shark!" The classics are dead, I tell you, dead.) They approach and I tell them they hear angry goblin voices. (I do my best nonsense guttural speech as the goblins.) My hint here is, of course, that clearly the goblins aren't watching for them, so a sneaky lock pick or even that bashing idea might be better…but, no, they still opt to knock. What do a bunch of goblin guards do when someone knocks on a door no one is supposed to be knocking on (or even know is there)? They ring the gong to summon more goblins! Well, so much for the element of surprise. But the goblins are in a room, only two can come to the door at a time, so the tactical situation favors the party. What do you want to do? "I shove through the goblin in front of me and charge into the room!" Uh…are you sure you want to run, by yourself, into a room full of armed goblins? "Yes!" Okay, Strength test…Yes, you push past the goblin, charge the nearest group, and are now surrounded by goblins. Next player? Ah the wizard. What's your plan. "I set fire to the door!" Uhm…it's already open. "I know! I hit it with fire bolt!" Okay, you can easily hit a barn door, as it were, and (rolls save check), the door bursts into flames. You now have a room full of angry, violent goblins, surrounding one of your party members, and you are outside, with a burning mass of wood blazing in the only opening. There's nothing like having a plan in place for dealing with the enemy. No, nothing like that at all. So, assorted Dexterity saves later to avoid the fire they had set between themselves and their now unconscious and bleeding-out buddy, the party manages to (somehow) overcome the goblins, capturing three. After a brief discussion that no, Good aligned characters will NOT torture goblins by gouging out their eyes with a spoon AND we WON'T be pursuing that line of imagination at the Library anyway (because I don't want our program shut down by angry parents), they realize that all they really need to do is try Intimidating the goblins, because after all, they just slaughtered the majority of the enemy with relative ease. Cue Interrogation! "I remind the goblins that we just killed all their friends!" (Rolls die. Gets a 19, which despite the character's -4 Charisma penalty, is more than enough to intimidate three lowly goblin minion types.) Goblin voice: Yes! Yes! We fight no more! "You will help us!" GV: Yes! We help! We help you! Another teen: "I'm checking to see if they're lying." (Rolls die. Decent result.) You surmise that they're probably being truthful about not fighting, but also probably lying about being of much help at all. What do you say next? First player: "Give us all your gold!" Okay… The goblins toss out their belt sacks. "How much did we get?" 9 electrum pieces. "Alright! Okay, we let the goblins go." Uh… What? You let them go? "Yes. But we will kill them if they come back!" And off the goblins go, despite being full of useful information, which is the main point of an interrogation. But hey, 9 electrum pieces! "How much is that worth?" *** So, after a bit of mucking about in the same general area, with the cleric wanting to rest and prepare new spells (to which he got a feeling of divine pressure that, no, time was the important factor here…as A.) kidnapped friend B.) the DM keeps tracking things with an actual hourglass and making notes every time it runs out…, well, after that, they have a moment of true, unguided inspiration and investigate the wall with the piles of dirt near it and find a secret door! Hooray! Now we're getting somewhere! And then the bulk of the party decides to go off down another corridor, while only two decide to enter the secret door…where they see the Big Villain, and decide to sneak up and attack him, unaided by the other party members (including both their spell casters). More on that in another topic. But let's just say that young newbie players have way more luck than they deserve to have given their decision-making process. |
sgt Dutch | 09 Jun 2018 12:34 p.m. PST |
Congrats on getting a new generation playing D&D. This could lead to life long friendships. Being ancient (late 60's) I played with some buddies, The DM son's & friends 20 some years olds. We all had to create new character. Damn if these youngest knew everything needed to kick Ass. They I would professionals. Fun game now I need to brush up on the rules… |
UltraOrk | 10 Jun 2018 8:36 p.m. PST |
Welcome to my world The party has cleared the room and is beginning to search when one hears footsteps of a large group coming down the hallway to the north. Rather than plan an ambush or take defensive positions let's throw rocks down the hall and shout to the wizard he needs to prepare a spell he is way to low level to know. Meanwhile the dwarf is going to set the tapestries on fire so there's more light to see and the rouge wants to start digging a pit for the bad guys to fall in. Things did not go well for that encounter but it did make for some good stories later on |
UltraOrk | 10 Jun 2018 8:39 p.m. PST |
Oh the dwarf also kept shouting "we come in peace!" |
Parzival | 11 Jun 2018 5:31 a.m. PST |
UltraOrk, are you sure we don't have the same players? |
79thPA | 11 Jun 2018 12:34 p.m. PST |
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