In this session our party took part in a historical recreation of an infamous halfling battle at the Mintarn arena as party of a celebration organised by the Tyrant of Mintarn. Which was gatecrashed by the red dragon Hoondarrh, demanding that their tribute is delivered early. Afterwards the Tyrant recruits our party to deliver the tribute to Hoondarrh.

Post-mortem

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one.

This was a slightly shorter session than usual. Our sweet spot is around the two hour mark. But the way things worked out, this session ended up being an hour and a half roughly. However this still counted as two experience check points. Which meant that three players at the end of the session were able to level up to level three. The others had been able to do that at the end of the previous session.

One bit of business I had to do to the start of the session was some house keeping with the groups dwarf sorcerer. This basically entailed checking the equipment they had, and then informing them that the find familiar spell had been used incorrectly in the previous session. I then had to break the bad news to them about not being above to cast it until the casting requirements were met.

One thing that hadn’t occurred naturally during the previous sessions was providing the opportunities for the groups druid to see animals for them to transform into (once they were able to do so). The Mintarn Arena presented the ideal opportunity for this. Historically gladiator arenas were known to use animals of various types as part of the “entertainment” that they provided. So as the party were wandering around the arena behind the scenes they came across various caged animals, such as wolves, bears, boars, tigers and panthers.

At the end of the day after the days happenings at the Arena the party had a chance to go shopping at the market. I had the market closing up for the day. I wanted a way to restrict what the characters could buy. I don’t want the players getting used to the idea of they can just buy everything they need all the time. I want scarcity. Making the players make decisions during the rest of the session about how they use their equipment and spells.

Part of the reason the session didn’t last as long as I thought it would, was down to the main encounter of the session at the arena. I had pre-drawn the battle map out on my folding white board. Sadly this was the reason why the encounter was quicker than anticipated. The folding white board wasn’t wide enough. So the gap between the outer towers and the middle tower was less than it should have been. It had become jumpable! And yes that was the first thing the players attempted. Luckily the halfling druid had entangle in it’s spell list.

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Was the comment made when I had the halflings on their turn rile up the crowd. It was the reason I did it. So I think showing instead of telling worked in that instance.

Because the main goal of this arena encounter had been achieved quicker than planned. I had to stretch it out, and have the encounter continue. This was explained by the Tyrant and the arena owner not wanting an entertaining recreation to end. So decided to let it continue. This had the players thinking that the Tyrant had other reasons for doing so. A bit of doubt over the motives of the Tyrant seemed a good thing.

I’m also glad I didn’t spend much of my scarce monetary resources creating a 3D version of the battle map. If I already had the stuff that would have been a different matter. Having raised battle tiles is something I will invest in at a future point in time when funds are more plentiful.

I’d always planned to have Hoondarrh gate crash the encounter. Once again I used the WOIN countdown mechanic to determine when this would happen. I do like this mechanic a lot for determining when certain events happen. It removes the having to decide when it will happen. Although you still have the option of triggering the event if the moment seems appropriate.

Dropping Hoondarrh in was a surprise for the players. They were not expecting that. It also presented a comedic moment. But it also highlighted how little the party remember from previous sessions. Is this due to poor note taking, the gaps between sessions, or me not putting enough emphasis on certain facts and story plot points? This is something I’m going to have to monitor closely.

I liked giving the players one less magic item than there were players. It meant they had to negotiate between themselves who had what.

Overall despite it being a short session, everyone had a good time I think.