Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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Bret Ripley
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by Bret Ripley »

honorentheos wrote:
Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:48 pm
We had an interesting situation arise in the session on Friday...
A few days ago I started writing a reply about the 'Thad' storyline but somehow managed to delete it. Short version: I'm a fan. Your DM-fu is strong.

Last week my wife was visiting my sister and somehow the subject turned to gaming. As a result, my wife asked me to run a game -- any RPG -- for her, my sister, my nephew, and my sister's stepdaughter. As far as gaming chops go, my wife has some RPG experience (but, like me, that was about 30 years ago) while sister's stepdaughter is a D&D maven. I don't think sis has ever played (although she sometimes used to casually observe back in the day) and while nephew has never played a TT game he has played D&D-based PC games and has actually become somewhat knowledgeable about TT D&D through videos/podcasts. He is very keen to give it a try. Ayway, it would be an interesting mix in terms of gaming experience.

This request came completely out of the blue and I initially dismissed the suggestion out-of-hand. But then a few days later my wandering mind started getting ideas for settings/encounters/scenarios, and now I'm starting to rethink my initial reaction. And, frankly, I would benefit from some kind of creative outlet -- sometimes I need a vacation from my own head, and game planning and collaborative story making may fit the bill. But man: if I decide to go ahead with it I have a lot of homework to do, starting with choosing a game and either re-learning an old gaming system or (if it is to be D&D 5E, for example) a new one. Frankly, it's a bit intimidating.

It appears I have some thinking to do, and any advice/observations will be appreciated.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by honorentheos »

Bret Ripley wrote:
Sat Jul 16, 2022 3:22 am
It appears I have some thinking to do, and any advice/observations will be appreciated.
This is very similar to how I ended up reentering the TT space. So, approaching 2 years in, way too many minis and books, and the fact a day literally (yes, literally) doesn't go by that I don't spend some time thinking about D&D and the campaign because everything could be a potential bit of inspiration, well. Maybe what I should say is walk away and don't look back. But seriously, I think this sounds like an amazing opportunity I encourage you to take. The creative outlet is a huge aspect of it for me. But I also just like playing big, ranging games with immense scope with other people. Video games have never filled the same space for me that playing games fills, and getting back into TTRPGs has been a meaningful positive addition.

Other advice:

1) Have a get-to-know-you non-session before making any decisions.
I suggest having a conversation with the group, preferably all together, to talk about what they would want to play (vague idea about settings, high- or low magic, ect.), what they expect in terms of an experience, and what their thoughts on a system might be. We did this informally since they were hanging out and I just stopped in to chat about it. It helped me understand that for the group 5e was the right choice. Three hadn't ever played more than a single short one shot in 5e so they were on-board with playing any edition. The guy who plays all the time was almost more interested in playing an old edition, and the other player with experience had only played 5e but was open to playing whatever. So on its face it seemed like I could have done anything. But in that conversation two important things became apparent. First, the expectation of what the game would be like for most of them was very modern, very much like the actual play podcasts they had heard/seen. And second, the learning curve for playing a crunchy older game would probably only appeal to a couple of them while I got the clear impression too much focus on crunch and mechanics would likely lead to a couple of them dropping out. If I took the game back to AD&D it would mean me with my rusty memory would be the only one who had any experience, and we'd be playing with limited support resources. Whereas the resources for DM help on 5e is a multi-million dollar industry right now. 5e made sense for us, but it helped to have that discussion. It also helped me get a feel for the dynamic between the group and their general interest in the game.

2) Take advantage of it being 2022.
Regardless of what system or edition you end up choosing, it's an entirely different world from when I played over 30 years ago. The internet is awash in resources. There are dozens if not hundreds of Youtubers with game advice, a bajillion actual plays, countless websites and apps, Reddit threads and Facebook groups, online publishers like the DMGuild and DriveThroughRPG - there is so much out there it's too much if you don't filter. But that's a good problem to have.

When we started, the group told me about an app/website they had used the one time they all played in a one shot which at first sounded like it was primarily a 5e character builder help website. It is called DnDBeyond. I initially missed just how much it actually does, but it basically makes character creation a much easier process. And that is probably one of the barriers for new players. It was recently purchased by Wizards of the Coast. I currently do all of my combat encounter building it in, run the encounters in it, and it means I have the books I purchased through it on my phone at all times. It's pretty cool. Not to make this into an ad for it, the point is that the new games have many more tools out there that can make the learning curve significantly less steep.

3) Unsure? 5e D&D is a safety net to get started and pivot if that makes sense.
5e is a flawed system, out of the gate. But its selling point is it has one of the lowest barriers to entry of any TTRPG I've ever played with high levels of enjoyment. I've found over time that there is a lot of lifting that falls to me in the gaps created by that low bar, but if you are getting the band together for the first time it's an easy run through of House of the Rising Sun. Anyone under the age of 40 who is interested in playing D&D almost certainly envisions 5e when they picture what D&D is like due to the popularity of Critical Role, and it's built to make players feel powerful in a wonderous world. PC death is rare starting around 3rd level, the game has made magic accessible to almost everyone, and the game is focused on encounters rather than survival.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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I also tend to like Matt Coville's Running the Game series on YouTube for reasonable concise thoughts on DM topics. It is meant for first time DMs in 5e but it has a lot of great information for DMs of all levels. The first couple of episodes may not be too focused on the truly new DM but that is quickly moved beyond in favor of laying out good reminders or new ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTD2RZz6mlo&t=0s

ETA: The first video provides links to, and describes, a legit first time 5e one shot that Coville put together.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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honorentheos wrote:
Sat Jul 16, 2022 5:04 pm
It is called DnDBeyond.
Image
Wow. First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to write out all that great advice.

I was vaguely aware that nowadays there were tools available online, but I had no idea. I've been spending some time on DnDBeyond and ... well, just wow.

I've been browsing the core rules and there are several changes I really like. For example, non-extreme stats now mean something whereas in AD&D and 2e you could almost ignore any stat that wasn't very low or very high (15 or 16, If I recall correctly, before any modifiers kicked in). Other things I'm not as keen on, such as a few of the fantastical races now available for PCs; but that's a relatively minor niggle and something that mostly affects world-building and game-style, and may just take some getting used to (or simply be disallowed, I suppose, if the DM feels strongly enough about it and doesn't mind acting the curmudgeon).

A conversation with the prospective players regarding expectations/preferences is definitely in the cards. But 5e just became significantly less intimidating to me, and I am leaning heavily towards following your advice about using it as a sort of safety net. Anyway, my impression is that 5e will probably be preferred by two of the players so it's just as well my comfort level with it has improved. I've already come up with a couple of rough ideas for interesting encounters, either of which could be fleshed out to work as a one-off session and could also serve as modest campaign-starter material (if it comes to that).
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by honorentheos »

Bret Ripley wrote:
Sun Jul 17, 2022 9:35 pm
honorentheos wrote:
Sat Jul 16, 2022 5:04 pm
It is called DnDBeyond.
Wow. First of all, thank you very much for taking the time to write out all that great advice.

I was vaguely aware that nowadays there were tools available online, but I had no idea. I've been spending some time on DnDBeyond and ... well, just wow.
😊 Glad it was helpful!

I don’t know if I wish we had access to all of this when I was younger or if it was for the best that we – meaning my friend group and I – primarily did things in our own tiny pocket of the world and mostly just figured things out as we went. But I appreciate the access now and am comfortable throwing a few GP Wizard’s way to access it all.
I've been browsing the core rules and there are several changes I really like. For example, non-extreme stats now mean something whereas in AD&D and 2e you could almost ignore any stat that wasn't very low or very high (15 or 16, If I recall correctly, before any modifiers kicked in). Other things I'm not as keen on, such as a few of the fantastical races now available for PCs; but that's a relatively minor niggle and something that mostly affects world-building and game-style, and may just take some getting used to (or simply be disallowed, I suppose, if the DM feels strongly enough about it and doesn't mind acting the curmudgeon).
LOL. It’s funny how much this reflects the debate among folks over the OSR (old school renaissance) vs 5e D&D monopoly. I was also appreciative of the stats/proficiency/expertise updates that seemed like they give more meaning to average stats and skills. But 5e does sort of favor a handful of the six in ways the early editions didn’t. It makes Dexterity and Wisdom much more universally important and elevated Charisma at the expense of Intelligence and Strength. For example, DEX still affects AC but it also allows PCs to apply their DEX modifier to their weapon damage the same as a strength based attack ads the STR modifier to the damage, where I recall only strength affected damage in the edition we played. That made sense since the more powerful hit with a sword would likely do more damage but how is it that a more dexterous hit from an arrow does more damage? It is an example of how 5e sacrifices some of that nuance to make the game more simple and thus accessible. Your class base stat typically is the one that affects your primary means of doing damage, at least by 5th level. Armor class vs to-hit is simpler, skill check DCs and saves are more simple, it’s all meant to smooth out the crunch.

To that end, I do like the use of Advantage/Disadvantage as a reflection of ease or difficulty. But there are places in the game where you can see the attempt to insert in place of plus/minus modifiers wasn’t though through. The most obvious is the True Strike cantrip which now grants advantage to the next attack after it is cast in place of the +5 it used to grant. People mock it as a dumb cantrip but if you know what it used to do it makes more sense why it exists, just that it should have been fixed to better reflect the 5e environment rather than be a copy-paste of advantage in for a +X to attack modifier. You’ll see thing like that in the game.

Oh, lineages (races isn’t used now) are definitely a generational thing I think. Our games were very Middle Earth in tone, the rise of the age of humankind as the races of elves and dwarves were on the decline. Now it seems the vibe is for whimsical fantasy that makes ones race/lineage less mechanically interesting and more flavor. The Dark Crystal comes to mind over the Hobbit. There are changes now made official in 5e that weren’t in the rules just a couple of years ago that have effectively flattened out the stat bonuses of lineage selection to make it so that anyone can play any lineage/class combo without much difference. Being able to play, say, a harengon (rabbit person) rogue is probably something your younger, more 5e focused players would expect to be able to do. Personally, its less of an issue with the tools available to be able to check on the couple of racial traits that they get in game than it would be if I had to memorize every lineage’s abilities.

Anyway, best wishes on the journey!
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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Our session this week has appropriately arrived at the longtime coming confrontation between the party and the self-proclaimed Empress Saidra d'Honaire. In the Halloween spirit here are a few minis of her in her human and wraith forms along with her gnome consort.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by Physics Guy »

In the early days of tabletop RPGs everybody seemed to be making up their own house rules all the time. To sell more rulebooks, perhaps to a younger audience with less previous experience in gaming, the publishers of D&D started ranting about how important it was to follow the letter of the—that is, their—rules. That was my perception, anyway.

But maybe RPGs inherited two sets of DNA when they emerged from tabletop war-games. The boardgame genes were about exploiting the written rules cleverly in order to win, whatever those rules might be. The simulation genes were about using the rules as a tool to portray a different world. Adding role playing to the game tended to make people even more ruthless about exploiting the rules because winning meant building up your personal character over many games—and even helping the other players succeed as well, since the game was now mainly cooperative. Yet role playing could also push the game towards having fewer and looser rules, because they would be only a frame to hold the story.

I always liked making up rules to see what kinds of stories they tended to foster, when players naturally tried to exploit them. You can have the best of both worlds, if you can find a set of rules that works best for your group of players, in the sense that the tactics which are most effective under your rules are also the kind of stories that you like.

If somebody is sharp at making the right move at the right time in a technical combat system, then they'll like the game even more if it tends to turn their talent into a string of cool episodes. A player with no great skill at acting can become something more than a winner: a hero. That technical combat system might just constantly punish a talented actor who kept overlooking technical details, though, and turn a hero into a loser. The best balance point depends on the people involved. On the whole, though, I think that tabletop games tend to work better with looser rules that require a lot of on-the-spot adjudication by the gamemaster, because the presence of a human gamemaster is the killer feature of tabletop RPGs.

The great advantage of tabletop games over computer games is that the players can try to do anything. You're not limited to rolling that die, then that one, in order to (A)ttack the enemy with your (E)quipped (W)eapon. You could instead try to pull the tapestry off the wall and throw it over the enemy's head, or turn that mining cart into a dwarf-powered tank, or offer a truce and use it to sell the orcs some land in Mordor. You just have to explain to the gamemaster what you're going to try to do, and how you're trying to do it.

Naturally your explanation is also going to be your pitch to persuade the GM that your plan is brilliant and foolproof, because of course any tapestry that is still hanging there after three hundred years in the Forgotten Mine is bound to be heavy and strong—that's only reasonable, now, seriously, come on—and hence bound to work great to extinguish a fire elemental for, like, ten dice of damage, at least.

The gamemaster may well rule that the old tapestry is too thick and stiff to make an airtight seal around the fire elemental, that the mining cart will not reach a high ramming speed under dwarf power, and that the orcs have no concept of real estate. Players may be disappointed, but the gamemaster can usually end arguments decisively just by improvising decisive details. The tapestry is only still hanging there after three hundred years because it was held together by spiderwebs, which are highly flammable.

Players can usually see how this works and accept that they can't fight City Hall. Most players won't enjoy a game that devolves into constant nitpicking arguments about just how thick the tapestries are, and most understand that the game becomes pointless if crazy ideas are always wildly effective. But a creative idea with at least a germ of sense in it should not fail completely every time. It should pay off, to a reasonable degree, for players to try to work with the story instead of just with the rules. It even becomes fun to invent explanations, within the story, for random events that are dictated by lucky or unlucky dice rolls under the rules.

TLDR version: settle on enough solid rules to let people know how things work, but leave a lot to be decided by gamemaster rulings, and sell the experience as a shared story driven by problem-solving and some amount of chance.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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PG, you really got at the heart of why I like D&D 5e over past incarnations. It gives the DM much more discretion, leaving less room for rules lawyering and paralyzing calculations before taking action. I play RPGs for the interaction and stories, and I hate having a great session interrupted by quibbling over some obscure rule. The DMs I play with are more focused on the story than the mechanics, which makes for a great time if one is all about the adventure.

In the last session of my D&D group, we implemented an escape plan that we knew had a high chance of going comically bad. When it did, we had a blast. It was like a Monty Python sketch. Nobody was focused on the details of the savings throws (which there were a ton of). We just had a blast trying to dodge guards and fruitlessly searching for where our seized weapons and gear were being stored. We left off after just getting the last person over the wall surrounding the estate, and I was exhausted. Tons of fun. Next, I think we have to steal some horses cuz we have a deadline to meet. What could possible go wrong?
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by honorentheos »

Seconding what Res said. The group I've been DMing for over two years now using 5e has a couple of power gamers/ rules lawyers that I have to manage. As someone wise once said, given the chance, people will optimize the fun out of a game. So I play the bad guy periodically by telling them "no" and I don't care when they try to use a rule to "flatten" the game. That is the analogy I use with them - that when they use information and knowledge outside of the game to overcome or eliminate challenge inside of the game it's effectively using a cheat code that may seem satisfying in the moment but it kills what makes the game fun in the long run. I promised a full campaign. And if I am to deliver on that promise then their desire to have all the magic items and feats and bonuses and NPC easy-button problem solvers that they experienced in a one shot can't just show up like they may have experienced in a one shot/short lived adventure arc. They grumble in the moment but then have fun trying to figure out how to deal with the challenge that comes up using in the moment planning and creativity. Why that doesn't actually stick is a mystery but such is the burden of the DM.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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I shared this with someone already but thought I'd post it in this thread for fun. Plus, a little insight into how I "plan" sessions.

I recently put out feelers to see if anyone at our office would be interested in playing in a Halloween one-shot and received a fair amount of interest. I had to cap it at 6 confirmed people with a "maybe" player that would push it up to seven. We had a lunch meeting to talk about the game, find out more about everyone's background with D&D as well as what led them to want to play, and then introduce them to a character sheet. The majority of that meeting was spent explaining how the game worked, why the character sheet isn't as intimidating as it looks, and introducing them to DnDBeyond to make it easier. Of the group, only two have played before. And only one of those has played enough that I think they were able to create a character on their own without my help.

I've suggested to them that a good group backstory would include their being newer members of an organization that investigates and studies arcane phenomena, unusual creature reports, and an academic interest in seeing rare items studied. Sort of if Indiana Jones was in the fantasy genre, "This sentient legendary weapon belongs in a museum!" The need being to have a shared motivation for why a group would go to a village where strange events have been occuring that have been lethal to some villagers so their PCs don't just nope out of the adventure when things get weird.

The one shot is still meant to provide options for engaging what is mainly an investigation into the strange events. I've set it up so there are four main paths of inquiry that are interrelated. I'm also doing it this way so if they are interested in keeping going after the one-shot it would already be a hook-laden start of an adventure/mini-campaign.

Background: The session starts with the group arriving in the small village of Duskwich. Merchants and travellers coming from Duskwich have noted that the village suffered a mysterious catastrophe about a month ago that devastated many of the farm fields near the village and killed a number of the villagers. The devastation resulted in an approximately 1,000 foot diameter area north of the village being denuded of all living vegetation. It is unclear as to what actually happened as those who seemed to witness it directly all died. Some believe something fell from the sky and exploded in the middle of the affected area, others that something erupted up out of the ground. Oddly, there is one farmstead within the affected area that had all of its corn not only survive but apparently thrive. Yet no one has heard from the family that lived there and anyone who went to the farmhouse located in the center of the cornfield to inquire has returned. A malise had descended over the village that had led many to believe it would need to be abandoned when, by happy accident, a young girl sang a hymn to Malora which, while singing, seemed to cause the malaise to lift. After some experimentation the villagers discovered that as long as someone gifted made music in the middle of the village then the sense of foreboding dread would leave and all would be well. If no one was singing or making beautiful music, the hens would stop laying eggs, the cows wouldn't milk, paranoia and dread would invade everyone's thoughts, and the feeling of impending doom would begin to drive people to pack up and prepare to leave.

Four paths of inquiry:

1) The Grinning Sinners are a rival band of artifact and lore seekers who sell their findings to the highest bidder, no questions asked. Tomb Raider tropes for sure. A group of their band just arrived in the village ahead of the party and are set up in the tavern. They are following up on rumors that a band of jackelwares slipped into the village after their Lamia leader was killed by members of the Grinning Sinners in a nearby city. The Grinning Sinners are looking for items the jackelwares may have tried to sneak away. This hook will lead to spending time in the village trying to track down the jackelwares ahead of the Grinning Sinners leading to a showdown between the three groups. The Grinning Sinners will also make a bet with the party that they will be able to find a much better item or more valuable bit of information before sundown the next day (essentially 24 hours later). That way if the group meets them and then chooses a different hook there is still a connection to establish the rivalry. And possibly a showdown depending on timing for a final combat finale. The jackelware plot is basically an overhaul of the 2nd level adventure from the Candlekeep Mysteries module.

2) Richard Fox is an unscrupulous warlock who specializes in the rare goods trade as well. He will have heard of both the grinning sinners as well as the party's organization. But he isn't renowned enough for the party to have heard of him. He came through the village and discovered the jackelwares who are running a pawn shop in the village. He observed they owned a couple of rare magic books using detect magic which he asked to buy. The jackelwares, being evil, have a business model where they display items of interest for sale but then swap them out with a gingwatzim which is a sort of mimic creature. Richard Fox discerned their attempt at a sleight of hand trick and was able to swap them back, taking the actual books instead and leaving the gingwatzim behind. But it turned out he got more than he bargained for when one of the books, the Mallus Deus, contained a passage that had been inserted by a mad mage under the influence of the God Brain of Bluetspur, the domain of dread that it rules. Richard and his underlings had stopped for the night at the farmhouse spoken of above where the aging farmer, his wife, and his adult aged son had been welcoming and allowed them to dine with them. Reading the book, he came to the passage which triggered the manifestation of an orb of inquiry which caused the devastation. It also caused an eldritch horror to manifest under the farmhouse. This unfathomable being of horror causes the corn around the farmhouse to grow fertile and tall but poisons the corn so it is inedible. It is trapped under the farmhouse but its infinite number of tentacles emerge to attack anyone who attempts to leave as it drains victims of their will to live, feeding on their minds. One of the underlings had been killed by the horror when the group first attempted to escape, and the husband has been killed by Fox and his two remaining underlings as they all had begun to descend into madness as well as suffer from hunger. The one thing that affects the horror is music. Fox had also discovered this when by chance the wife had taken to playing their harpsichord as a means of consoling herself. This is tied to the villagers also discovering music has an effect but different as Duskwich is outside the range of the tentacles but not the effects of the horror. The music in the village seems to be enough to keep the horror's influence out of the village and isolated to around the farmhouse. The group trapped in the farmhouse has discovered that playing the harpsichord appeases the horror such that someone could walk away from the farmhouse unharmed while it is being played. But Fox and his hirelings are in a dilemma as none of them are willing to stay behind to allow the others to flee, and the wife stopped playing while they were partway through the field which resulted in two more being killed while the others barely survived coming back to the house. They've found that anyone walking towards the farmhouse is not attacked by the creature, only when someone attempts to flee. They've taken to attempting to lure others down the path to the farmhouse as one of them plays the harpsichord, ensuring the person doing the luring remains in sight near the building. They do this to try and get food which they have run out of two weeks ago and the hunger is getting harder to ignore. This is a major revamp of a story I got out of a different system. Oh, there are scarecrows and zombies in this hook.

3) Herr Doctor Traumwander is a mind-flayer trapped in Bluetspur following the raving commands of the insane God Brain. He monitors numerous orbs sent out into the multiverse seeking cures for the God Brain. The orb sent to Duskwich discovered the presence of a kobold clan guarding a slumbering adult red dragon. The God Brain has surmised that the cerebral fluid from this red dragon is needed to at least pause its descent into oblivion. If the party investigates the orb, as soon as they step into the area of devastation they will find it impossible to move further away from the orb and must go closer. When they get to within 20 feet of it, shoot it, or attempt to use magic on it, it will send out a psionic pulse that causes them to go unconscious. They will come to having been brought to the front of the kobold lair by an old man from the village who tells them they had come back to the village the day before reporting nothing was unusual out there. When the villagers tell them that the town guard who went to investigate the disappearance of sheep in the nearby hills south of the village didn't return, they had agreed to investigate it for the mayor. The mists behind them will be impenetrable and any attempt to go backwards will result in their facing the cave entrance again. It will turn out as they investigate in they will find a trapped door behind which is a small kobold ambush with another door opposite in the cavern. When they defeat the ambush they will find an identical door behind which is an identical ambush. This will repeat until they recognize the repetition. My play test of this with my normal group only took two rooms. At this point, they will become wrapped in mist and emerge in a white room dressed in simple linen garments and slippers without laces, seated on chairs in front of a man holding a strange book, and flanked by two other men holding odd looking clubs. This will be Herr Doctor Traumwander who calls them by modern english names and tells them they are in a facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico where they have been for over a year since being exposed to radiation. They have been suffering from a massive group hallucination about being an adventuring party that is exploring caves overrun by reptilian-dog-like creatures. He uses their confusion about what is going on to assert they must have regressed and then tells them he will begin at the beginning to help their recovery. He then is very interested in what they can tell him about how to overcome the traps and initial encounter with the kobolds. At some point he'll leave them, they can attack, whatever, he'll skedaddle, and the party will find the hallway outside has wandering people dressed like them claiming to be various figures from history and fantasy settings. Along the hall will be doors inside of which are rooms which include gear in cubby holes which includes their own. They'll also find some psionic healing rods. I coudn't come up with a good reason for this but it is needed to get them back in their stuff to be able to survive what is coming. If/when they attempt to leave the others will begin to chant, "You cannot leave" as their bodies merge into reduced threat gibbering mouthers as the Herr Doctor Traumwander is revealed to be a disease-ridden mind flayer (read, reduced threat) monitoring a grand orrary of a sector of the multiverse on Bluetspur that they will see through large overhead windows. Big battle, he reveals in a death monologue what was what. He tells them they never left Duskwich if/when they ask to return. And then they come to finding themselves struggling as if in a narrow container in pitch blackness. They then begin to hear the sound of dirt and rocks being shovelled onto wood - they are being buried alive! They have a chance to describe how they attempt to escape, the villagers burying them freak out believing they are undead and declaring they are like the others (the bodies of the PCs being recovered near the edge of the devastation and assumed to be dead because they seem dead). I ran this part by my regular party and it was fun. It ran long so I had to adjust for the one shot but the shock of it was awesome.

4) Kobold lair. The party will be introduced to the mayor Ciara Gilden, and the head of the village watch, Mane (short for Charlemagne) at the start. Mane will be heading to investigate a report of missing sheep near the hills south of the village. If the party decides to go this way, he'll say the watch will then investigate the quality of the ale at the tavern and pay them when they come back. They will have a little dungeon delve which will result in the discovery of the presence of a sleeping adult red dragon and some interesting items. Pretty standard D&D stuff.

The idea is to hopefully get them into one of the four paths quickly then railroad them to stay in that by looping them back into that story as needed. I need to keep it to four hours of total play. We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping they all have fun and at least some of the group decides they want to make a regular game out of it.
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