Story Hour: Introduction

The Story Hour is a series of posts meant to track the story of my current campaign and analyze how things turned out. This should not only let me reflect on my game and how I run it, but give you, the honorable reader, the boon of learning from my mistakes and maybe giving you ideas.

For this first installment, I will look at the first adventure the players embarked on.

This was the first I had DMed since I was 14, and it was a unique challenge. I decided to start off with 4th Edition D&D, and with the module Keep on the Shadowfell, an adventure published by Wizards of the Coast. As a newbie DM I decided to go with the published module rather than create my own, mostly for ease of play and to learn the system. I did, however, have enough foresight to remain vague and loose with the setting so that when I did move into my own campaign, it was a seamless transition.

The adventure was a poor choice. It was badly written and there were a lot of plot holes that I ended up screwing me over as a DM. However, it was a very good learning experience. Basically, there's this necromancer who is trying to open a portal to the Shadowfell (the plane of existence devoted to the dead) and summon the Demon Prince of the Undead, Orcus. However, when the players start, they don't know this, they just know that kobolds and goblins have been attacking the village of Winterhaven, and they need it to stop.

So the adventurers hunt down some kobolds and end up defeating them, and through that find a goblin, Irontooth, who bears the symbol of the above-mentioned demon prince. Later on, when the players return to the village they are ambushed by undead roaming the cemetery, among them is a mercenary. This mercenary has a note from the necromancer mentioning the Keep where he is.

So obviously the players head there to root out the problem, and this is where the adventure gets ugly. It's a long grind of encounter after encounter with no real meaning. There's an excavation site, but no mention of what is being excavated, and 3 or 4 encounters that have no real meaning. This is a big no-no in my book. All fights, all scenes, encounter, whatever you want to call it, they all need to have a reason for being there, otherwise it just adds to the tedium.

The second problem came from poorly designed social encounters. There were 1 or 2 NPCs that the players could interact with, but there was no reason why they should, logically. After being attacked by hordes of undead, why would the players expect to deal with ghosts diplomatically? That's lesson number 2 I learned. Players, for all their creativity, will most likely misinterpret your clues, so being too obvious is never a bad thing.

Though the players did meet (and kill) probably my favorite NPC of all time: The friendly, cowardly, goblin Splug. I was hoping he'd become something of a mascot, but ended up being shot in the back. Players are so racist sometime.

In the end, it wasn't a terrible experience. The players completely trounced the final enemy of the adventure, so I decided to bring him back as a character for much later in the campaign (this is level 1, he reappeared at level 11, and will again at level 21 or 22). The characters became something of heroes, and built a small reputation. They also got good loot. That's lesson number 3: Players love loot.

And so I leave you with the three lessons from my first adventure:

1. Encounters should always have a purpose for being there
2. Don't worry about being too obvious when it comes to abnormal situations
3. Players love loot

Until next time, happy gaming!