Session 04 – When the dice don’t tell the story
WARNING. THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR WIZARDS OF THE COAST’S “LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER” INCLUDED IN THE DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5th EDITION STARTER SET
It’s been a busy week. We did run through session 04, and I learned a lot from it, but it felt like one of the more clunky evenings. I went away feeling unsatisfied. I didn’t get a chance to update the diary though and, for those that are following along*, I’m sorry.
Last week’s session ended as the Redbrand Ruffians outside the Sleeping Giant Inn charged into the fray. Session 04 picked up as the fight began and we rolled initiative. I’ve started thinking more about how I end each evening and, although cliffhangers can become tiresome, my feeling is that it’s leaving the group ending the night wanting more, as opposed to just feeling tired.
The fight itself, was less than perfect – for two reasons.
The party recently rose to level 2 and I wanted to ramp up the difficulty but the fight was drawn out for several rounds when I couldn’t roll higher than a 7. It was quite thematic – the drunk Redbrand’s would not really be effective fighters – but it felt awkward. I threw in more reinforcements in an attempt to make the combat meaningful but my dice continued to fail me.
As more of the Redbrand’s joined the battle, one of my party asked, “Do I get some sort of bonus for flanking?”The combat ground to a halt as we all started looking for a rule that wasn’t there. This inevitably led to Google and, from there, to Optional Rule: Flanking on pg 251 of the DMG, a book I’d only received 4 days earlier.
This fight…was TOO DAMN LONG!!!
So what could I have done differently?
- I roll behind the screen. I think this is essential and it deserves an article by itself but, to summarise, this fight would have worked better if I’d fudged my roles a little and done some more damage to the party. At this point, I wouldn’t have needed to add unnecessary reinforcements. I’m going to put this down as Rule 6 – Roll your dice in private and learn when to fudge your rolls.
- Let me also provide a tip for newer dungeon masters; in your Session 0 you need to establish which books you will allow rules from. I should have specifically said, “I will allow standard rules, races and backgrounds from the Player’s Handbook only”. I could have (should have) ignored the optional rule completely.
With the battle complete I made an error and, to this day, I have no idea if it was a good thing or a bad thing. As the last ruffian headed toward the inn to call reinforcements the group gave chase. I described the veritable gang of hooligans and scoundrels inside. This was my party’s cue to run. They decided to intimidate the gang.
Now, let me be clear about this. The LMoP module calls for 4 Redbrand Ruffians here but I’d sent 6 at them already. I was now presenting them with 15 more. I found myself hitting the bottom of the hole I’d dug for myself and I just kept going. The party’s more experienced player stepped inside and tried to broker a deal but the whole scene was ridiculous in hindsight. After the session ended he explained his fall back plan was to cast Thunderwave. I sat there, glad it hadn’t come to that, knowing that to cast that spell would have been suicide.
After some more roleplay back at the Stonehill Inn, our party headed out the following morning, only to find themselves facing an angry mob and a child shouting, “There’s the one that broke into the Chapel!” as he pointed at Tsetung.
Events
A session dominated by a single combat mainly but there were some key events.
- The party had their first encounters with the Redbrand but came no closer to finding Gundren.
- The group met the enigmatic Gabriella, my beautiful homebrew bard who will become a recurring character very soon.
- I rectified last weeks mistake as the party met with Sildar in the Stonehill Inn. Sildar reminded Durin that he had two other cousins, Nundro and Tharden. He also offered the party a reward if they managed to find Lord Iarno Albrek.
- Lucius established himself as being motivated almost exclusively by personal reward. Corlan has deadly business to settle with the Redbrand thugs.
- The Redbrand in the Sleeping Giant has made his instructions to Lucius very clear. Next time they meet they’ll speak only with weapons.
- The Accidental Heroes might just be about to be arrested. And they’re going to find themselves being toyed with.
Scratchpad
- The party needs to understand that they cannot win every fight and that, sometimes, prudence is the better part of valour.
- I have another mistake to fix. The Redbrand are not a credible threat at the moment.
*And this is a huge surprise to me also but, looking at the statistics, some of you are actually following along.
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Rule 6 is well worded, but learning when to fudge rolls will only come with experience and doing so at the wrong time is a very common, new DM, error. There are many that would argue, for the integrity of the game, you should never fudge rolls. There’s merit to both sides of that argument.
Generally, when you are talking about the core rules of D&D, you are speaking about the Player’s Handbook (PHB), Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG), and the Monster Manual (MM). In 5th edition, Wizards of the Coast simplified combat to make it easier and faster. Rules that appeared as standard rules in previous editions, became optional in 5E–Such as flanking. I think you will find as you become more knowledgeable about the rules and Fantasy Grounds, your combats will move faster.
Don’t be afraid to make a table side ruling with the disclaimer of, “I am making a ruling for THIS session. After this session I will look up the correct rule and we will use that going forward. I will let you know the correct rule at the beginning of next session.” Or however you’d like to word it. Nobody wants to spend 10-15 minutes looking up a rule. Not saying you spent 15 minutes looking for that rule, but just giving general advice there.
It’s a common, DM, mistake to throw too much at a party–Don’t kick yourself too hard for it. If you are not familiar with it, 5E has something called Challenge Ratings (CR). CRs are a GUIDE to DMs to help them ensure they are giving the party an appropriate challenge. There are many good CR calculators available on the web. CR calculation is also built into Fantasy Grounds (See your Encounters button in FG). If you are not familiar with CRs and how to use them, I would suggest reading up on them. Again, they are only a guide for the DM, but they give you a pretty good idea.
Scratch Pad Notes:
Players engaging in every fight — This, again, is very common for new D&D players/groups. I’m not sure it’s something you need to try and fix. Usually, this is something they will out grow–if there’s a consequence to their actions. Don’t be afraid to let a player character die. Many DMs worry it will ruin the game for that player. It’s part of the game… It’s part of the game you should plan/prepare for.
“The Redbrand are not a credible threat at the moment.” I think you are being too hard on yourself here. I might re-phrase that to, “The band of Redbrand my players fought, last session, were not a credible threat.” You had a night of bad rolls. Shake it off, it happens to everyone.
I don’t know how much playing experience you have with D&D. My impression is that both you and your players are relatively new to the game. I’d like to suggest, if you can find the time, to join a FG game as a player–even if it’s only for a one shot, or short adventure. This will give you some valuable experience to see where the players are coming from, and you can watch another GM in action. If you can’t do that, I’d suggest maybe watching some D&D play on youtube. There are a lot of streams available. I would suggest going to youtube and doing a search for “d&d with high school students season 1. Season 1 is only 4, 30 minutes episodes. It’s pretty basic, but there are some tidbits to learn. Season 2, to me, was a lot more enjoyable to watch. Season 2’s group of players was much more unpredictable and had the DM on his toes. I suggest this series because it’s a little more realistic as a new GM. If you go out and watch something like Critical Roll (Which is a great series), you’ll walk away discouraged because they have a great GM and a great group of role-players.
Lastly, don’t forget about the things you are doing right! If you and your players are having fun, you’ve obeyed the first rule of gaming! Have fun!
I think you have to fudge the odd rule now and again but, thinking it through, having a night of bad rolls probably isn’t a bad idea. I’m pretty sure my players are now thinking that I’m not sticking to the dice. I did have to fudge a roll on Thursday’s session (I’ll get the notes up quicker this week) otherwise we’d have lost one of our characters. I don’t think any of us are ready for this just yet.
I totally get what you are saying about making a session only rule. You’re right that we’re new to the whole D&D thing but this is something we’ve got a lot of experience with from tabletop gaming. Thing is though, I’ve learned that my players really want to understand and their natural instinct is to head to the PHB if there is something they want to know about. I’m happy to let them do that but I will reign them in if it’s taking too long. I think we wasted about 3 or 4 minutes and, on its own, it wouldn’t have been an issue but it was a really slow fight to begin with and this just didn’t improve things.
Critical Role is the very reason I started all of this. I was just sat there watching through Warhammer painting videos one day and YouTube put a Vox Machina episode in my feed. I watched for a bit and thought “I just have to do this”. I would love to play in a one-shot though. Maybe something for the future.
I think it could have been totally apropriate to let the players suffer consequences in the tavern if it had gone that way. You wouldn’t even need to kill them, it being an inn full of thugs, they could just rob the players of all their gold and throw them out. Even theives won’t always kill if they don’t have to.