Post by aelin on Sept 13, 2018 4:20:43 GMT
So I am usually player. I had been playing DnD 5e for about 9 months when I decided I would try DMing for the first time. It was getting close to Christmas, and I love Christmas as well as hosting people, so I thought it would be perfect to play a one shot with people from both my groups I played in and have a bit of a Christmas party. Since it was my first time ever trying to DM, I went to some of my online friends and asked them to play test it for me, turns out that was my first mistake. When I put the invitation out for people to join my Christmas one off, I got a lot more responses than I expected and in the end had to run it twice just to have the entire online group accommodated for, and then I still had my real life group that was to play. It was a high level campaign, so they started at level 17 and had like a couple thousand gold each to get themselves set up.
The first night came around and I was all ready to go. They all start in a town in the far north, mostly traveling through for various reasons. First a couple of my character arrive on a war elephant. Why you ask? Because they could. So while they are trying to figure out where to "park" the war elephant, others went into the tavern, ignoring the freaked out gnome (Christmas Elf) and just getting drunk. All the while the druid went to the reindeer that was freaking out, casting speak with animals on it. It was the reindeer that ended up being the quest giver for this game, up until the druid tried to grab it to have it lead them to the north pole, only for it to pull out of her grasp and run, leaving the elf now stranded in this town. Nearly 3 hours later we finally leave the town. They never made it to the north pole before the end of the night, and due to conflicting schedules we never finished their session, likely for the best when the skype chat included talk of catapulting the war elephant into Santa's workshop to kill him.
The second group came around and this one went a little better. That being said our rogue tried to steal from the bartender while the bartender was looking at him. As you can guess it didn't go over well for them. The at least got the quest from a humanoid this time over the reindeer. It only took them 1.5 hours to get out of the town this time before they hit the road and found candy cane lane. Now I can't remember who licked the candy canes first, but someone did and started to chop it down. While they worked on it, someone else started licking another one and got his tongue stuck. It was a fun side track and it all went well until they got to the boss battle. It turns out that Santa was enthralled by a beholder. Our rogue wanted to kill Santa and our bard wanted to save him. So the rogue got the killing blow, but the bard could still resurrect him if she had a part of the body. Summoning a wolf she the wolf bite a piece of Santa's finger off before running. That lead the rogue and the bard to forget the beholder and fight each other. Like not verbal, their characters were trying to kill each other over this. In the end they managed to kill the beholder thank goodness, but the rogue paid for his act with his life to restore Santa to life and the magic of Christmas.
Finally there was my real life group. This one went the best. They got past the hot chocolate elementals, and the giant toys. What got them caught up was a puzzle written in blood. It was a simple figure out what letter corresponds with what number and solve it that way, but they decided there had to be a precise pattern to it. They couldn't figure it out and some of them entered the boss room seeing the Christmas Beholder and Santa standing there. They start the battle, but as it went on, it wasn't going well, and Scott (one of my players) still wanted to figure out the puzzle. He dimension doored as far out of the area that he could, essentially removing himself from the battle while he finished the puzzle. In the end his comrades were able to make up for him not being there and he figured out the puzzle. Too bad that the puzzle was just to give you a chance at a surprise round on Santa and the Beholder.
Apparently nothing could go right, but I can't wait to do it again this year with a different story and a little more DMing experience under my belt to deal with these crazy situations.
The first night came around and I was all ready to go. They all start in a town in the far north, mostly traveling through for various reasons. First a couple of my character arrive on a war elephant. Why you ask? Because they could. So while they are trying to figure out where to "park" the war elephant, others went into the tavern, ignoring the freaked out gnome (Christmas Elf) and just getting drunk. All the while the druid went to the reindeer that was freaking out, casting speak with animals on it. It was the reindeer that ended up being the quest giver for this game, up until the druid tried to grab it to have it lead them to the north pole, only for it to pull out of her grasp and run, leaving the elf now stranded in this town. Nearly 3 hours later we finally leave the town. They never made it to the north pole before the end of the night, and due to conflicting schedules we never finished their session, likely for the best when the skype chat included talk of catapulting the war elephant into Santa's workshop to kill him.
The second group came around and this one went a little better. That being said our rogue tried to steal from the bartender while the bartender was looking at him. As you can guess it didn't go over well for them. The at least got the quest from a humanoid this time over the reindeer. It only took them 1.5 hours to get out of the town this time before they hit the road and found candy cane lane. Now I can't remember who licked the candy canes first, but someone did and started to chop it down. While they worked on it, someone else started licking another one and got his tongue stuck. It was a fun side track and it all went well until they got to the boss battle. It turns out that Santa was enthralled by a beholder. Our rogue wanted to kill Santa and our bard wanted to save him. So the rogue got the killing blow, but the bard could still resurrect him if she had a part of the body. Summoning a wolf she the wolf bite a piece of Santa's finger off before running. That lead the rogue and the bard to forget the beholder and fight each other. Like not verbal, their characters were trying to kill each other over this. In the end they managed to kill the beholder thank goodness, but the rogue paid for his act with his life to restore Santa to life and the magic of Christmas.
Finally there was my real life group. This one went the best. They got past the hot chocolate elementals, and the giant toys. What got them caught up was a puzzle written in blood. It was a simple figure out what letter corresponds with what number and solve it that way, but they decided there had to be a precise pattern to it. They couldn't figure it out and some of them entered the boss room seeing the Christmas Beholder and Santa standing there. They start the battle, but as it went on, it wasn't going well, and Scott (one of my players) still wanted to figure out the puzzle. He dimension doored as far out of the area that he could, essentially removing himself from the battle while he finished the puzzle. In the end his comrades were able to make up for him not being there and he figured out the puzzle. Too bad that the puzzle was just to give you a chance at a surprise round on Santa and the Beholder.
Apparently nothing could go right, but I can't wait to do it again this year with a different story and a little more DMing experience under my belt to deal with these crazy situations.
