Convergence DM Log - Session 9

 Preamble

The party has a purpose and set out towards the Arbor of Ann, a lost ruin of what remains of what was a grand university.  There they would find the needed mcguffin, I mean, particle tunneler to test Ted's theory of returning and repairing a reality fractured by a convergence event.  Of course, unless I wanted to jump to the actual end dungeon we needed something to happen.  The question was:  What?

Can I interest you in a side quest?

This is the real question.  We wrapped session 8 of what was slated to be 15 sessions of gaming.  We're past the halfway mark and the party could still have quite the challenge of getting the particle tunneler, getting it back to Ted and then seeing what wackiness ensues.  If we try to high that benchmark of ending the game around session 15, there are lots of things that can happen.  They could pass a community in need.  They could decide to explore a ruin.  We could always have a lovely round of guilt free zombie slaughter.  

All of these options are literal side quests.  They're all things that the party could conceivably skip, claiming that with the fate of the world in the balance, time is of the essence.  Of course from a production point of view there's another factor:  The in character banter.

It can be very hard to plan times around the characters debating the morality of pushing the gnoll's reality back to it's original state, the moral question that has really dominated the game.  It's actually quite possible that the party will set out to find another convergence event that they want to test the theory on where no sentient creatures were pulled through.  

Now this isn't to say that I don't appreciate these amazing rounds of role play.  I'm quite proud of my players for creating characters that are truly interesting (to me) to watch RP and delve into these issues.  There are many opinions at the table and the characters come at things from a variety of angles.  It's tough though because for viewers/ chat, too much extended RP can also lose some of the theatrical momentum.  It's that sweet spot in a good movie where we're done watching Tony and Steve debate the Avengers' rules of engagement and we're ready to watch their CGI selves bash in some equally CGI baddies.

Literal Highwaymen

As part of my game prep for the night, I figured the party could do with a chance to flex their new level 3 muscles.  They're going to get one, maybe two more level ups between now and the end of the campaign so it makes sense to revel a bit in their new power.  From there I started to think about interesting opportunities.  And who better than the stock and standard "this is our road and you can pay a toll for it".

I did this with Valley of Plenty when the party just starts out with the caravan and hits a common mundane challenge.  The power of this encounter is that it lets people try a few things before combat starts and allows some decent role play if the group wants.  It's also a trope that people recognize and go a lot of ways.

Are the people blocking the road doing so to feed the poor and oppressed by the regional overlord?  Are they just opportunists that are taking what they can when they can?  Are they simply wicked people who are out to hurt anyone and everyone they can?  

For this encounter they were simple bad guys.  

Command

This is one of the coolest yet trickiest spells in the Cleric Arsenal.  The plain text of the spell is as follows:

You speak a one-word command to a creature you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or follow the command on its next turn. The spell has no effect if the target is undead, if it doesn't understand your language, or if your command is directly harmful to it.

As near as I can tell the purpose of the spell is give the Cleric some charm abilities but within the trope of "people do what priests say".  I've flexed a bit to allow up to two words to avoid ambiguity, or to allow intentions to float in so "Drop" isn't a case of the target standing there wondering whether to drop to the ground or to drop their weapon.  "Drop It" becomes a legit command in this context.

Of course in the moment a player can be overwhelmed with the choices and hit that lovely point of Analysis Paralysis.  So many commands, what do I pick?

And this was complicated by the simple fact that no amount of payment was going to get the party past the gate without a fight.  The bandits thought they had the upper hand and weren't afraid to use it.

Speaking of the upper hand:

It's in the title

I won't get greatly into the mechanics as we left in a midfight cliff hanger.  I will say that this is a home brew Dragon.  I used a stat block with a reasonable CR and then reskinned on the dragon shape.  I have no regrets.

In fact I'd say it's one of the better ways to approach things.  Take the Drider I threw at a 3rd level party a while back in a different game.  It was intended to be an interesting fight but I didn't want to use a giant spider again but I wanted something spidery.  Granted a drider at that level would wipe the party but a displacer beast wouldn't.  So rather than retooling the stats on one, I just dropped the shape on to the other.  Rather than phasing in and out of existence, the Drider!Displacer Beast was simply so nimble on her webs as to be very challenging to hit.  A good hit, however, would mean that she was forced to slip into the web and was easier to hit now.  It kept the combat interesting and on par with the player abilities.

So to that end, the Dragon the party is currently fighting is not one of the published ones.  But it's the "right CR" it feels balanced (so far) and I find the powers it has to be interesting.  

When I look back on the last year and a half of online Dungeons and Dragons, I'm finding that I'm really good at presenting Dungeons but my Dragons seem to be lacking.  I've wanted to work more dragons into the game and letting the highwaymen have an actual dragon they've raised and trained felt like a good plot twist.  Adding in the post modern back drop of the car barricade, it felt like a potentially iconic view for the game.  Then you add in the reaction of the players as the dragon appeared after a little bit of combat and the whole scene felt worth it.

Behind the Scenes

As we came up on "quit time" there was a real question on the table:  Do we cliff hang the combat or do we cliff hang the idea of "where the heck did they get a dragon?"  We could easily have had the dragon, wounded, fly away and end the fight.  Having a dragon in the world and in the vicinity of the party has some merit.  At the same time, having the party possibly take down a dragon is also quite the motivator.  In our zoom chat/ safety chat, I asked for a preference and there was a near unanimous call to finish the combat in the following session.

Conclusion

This was a very satisfying session for me.  We had some good character moments, some good banter with bad guys and some satisfying combat.  It was fun to hang out with my friends, tell some story, play some game and have a generally good time. I think it showed that you don't need to have every session be high stakes, high pressure, high anxiety bundles of tension.  Sometimes you can just have fun.