Youth D&D 2011 Event
Jan. 30th, 2011 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsolThe teaser from the Owlcon XXX program:
Event Listing – Youth D&D: Many Happy Returns
Game System – D&D (Simplified Variant)
Teaser – “It's the classic dungeon adventure: brave venturers must enter the lair of a dragon, navigate hazards, battle monsters, reach the fabled hoard of treasure, and add treasure to it. Wait, what?!”
From the introductory notes:
Four hundred years ago the Great Worm Magghadoratha, known commonly as Holocaust, came to the civilized lands near the Free City of Three Rivers. He attacked the Temple of Fountains , about twenty miles from the City, and drove all the monks from their halls. He took up residence in the Temple itself and has lived there ever since.
At first there was open conflict between the dragon and Three Rivers. The dragon would steal cattle and strafe the town. The City would send regular attacks against the dragon’s lair. But then an invasion of orcs came from the north. The dragon and the City joined forces to repel the orcs. An uneasy truce developed.
The arrangement was this: the City would bring the dragon tribute, basically a large yearly bribe in gold and magic. They would also bring the dragon food. In return, the dragon would help the City by eliminating any threats that came along, such as the occasional monster or orcish exploratory force. Both sides agreed not to attack each other.
This truce has held for two hundred years, and the dragon has become accepted as just another part of the history of the town. The truce was tested almost a hundred years ago when the dragon claimed that thieves had broken into its lair and stolen some of its treasure. Only a great deal of diplomacy and added treasure kept Holocaust from rising up to attack Three Rivers once again.
It is now the day after Tribute Day. The Grand High Mayor, Dornal, has hastily summoned your band of heroes to City Chambers for an early morning conference.
From the initial briefing notes:
The Grand High Mayor, Dornal, is very angry. He is also very frightened. One of these is common. The other is not.
“We have a situation,” he explains. “Yesterday was Tribute Day. Hector here,” and he jerks a thumb at a frightened underling, “has just come back from the Temple of Fountains. He delivered 80,000 pieces of gold and a chest full of magic to Holocaust in his lair.” He pauses to glare at Hector. “Unfortunately, he also brought something back with him.”
“It was a perfectly understandable accident,” Hector says, flustered. “There was some green goo on the ground and I stepped in it. I guess I stepped in something else as well.” Hector brings forward a small golden pendant. It is flat and the size of a coin, in the shape of a salamander and set with red jewels.
“It stuck to my shoe,” says the miserable Hector. “It must have been part of the dragon’s hoard. It came out of the Temple with me and I didn’t discover it until a little while ago.”
“The dragon knows every coin and every bauble in its hoard,” the Mayor cuts in. “He’ll miss this pendant before long. The fact that he’s not breathing fire down on us now only means that he hasn’t missed it yet. We’re going to fix that.” Dornal takes a deep breath. “You guys,” he says, indicating the party, “are going to break into the Temple of Fountains, return this pendant to the hoard, and get out without being discovered.”
“AND,” he adds, glaring sternly at the less trustworthy-looking party members, “you’re not going to take ANYTHING. Or ELSE.”
He turns to an ancient dwarf. “This is Hounzan,” says the Mayor. “Four hundred years ago he was a novice with the Temple. He was there when Holocaust attacked, but he escaped out a service tunnel at the foot of the hill.”
“I may be old, but I still remember the secret entrance to that passage, behind the Three Cranes Waterfall. I can give you directions to find it again,” says Hounzan in a quavering voice. “You should be able to climb that passage all the way up to the lair of the dragon.”
“But don’t get caught,” adds the Mayor. “And don’t get eaten. And for goodness sake, DON’T TAKE ANYTHING!”
The seven characters. Don’t blame me; my kids invented the names.
AJIHAD is a wind-dervish, a kind of warrior who fuels his martial skill with anger. Originally from the Plane of Elemental Chaos, Ajihad is committed to defeating evil by getting really angry at it and hurting it a lot. Ajihad’s lord and father, the Djinni Lord Ma’hadma, has promised Ajihad’s services to the town in exchange for some political favor.
ARIN is an Elvish Zephyr, a kind of military doctor. The Zephyrs believe that the north wind brings with it healing powers, but also sweeps away trash. Zephyrs actually throw their scimitars like boomerangs and wind brings it back to their hand; they fight in melee with rod-like clubs. Arin came to defend Three Rivers in a battle and has never left.
ASIA is an elvish Cold Witch from the Living Glacier of Kuuron. Her people shepherd cold on behalf of the mighty glacier that is both their home and their God. The Living Glacier made a prophecy that someday it will need the help of the City of Three Rivers; Asia is here to help Three Rivers in order to gain the goodwill of that City.
FLAGYARD THE DESTROYER is a warrior and death-knight, an intelligent and self-willed form of undead. Normally undead are evil, but Flagyard suffers under a curse placed on him by a paladin; he must do good works for a hundred years, and then he will be released from his torment and fall to dust. Flagyard has twenty years remaining.
JARK THE PERCEIVER is a human inquisitor. The ultimate detective and avenger, Jark seeks out hidden evils and exposes them to the light to contain or destroy them. Jark is actually a member of the City of Three Rivers’ police force, and he is frequently assigned to the City’s most difficult and sensitive of cases.
MARK THE TEMPLAR is a human wizard and swordsman. He has wandered through every corner of the world in his never-ceasing quest to learn everything about the world that there is to know. Although his adventures have taken him far and wide, he is beginning to feel like settling down, and so he has adopted Three Rivers as his new home. Now he combats threats to the town using both sword and spells.
SANON is a dragon-born warrior and thief. Sanon’s family is derived from green dragons; she can breathe a toxic cloud of poisonous droplets that burns opponents. Sanon was caught red-handed by Jark in the middle of a burglary; instead of jail, she chose a probationary sentence doing good works for the City of Three Rivers.
A bit more information on the Temple of Waterfalls:
THE TEMPLE OF FOUNTAINS
The Temple of Fountains is an ancient and contemplative order of monks. They were founded by Orzag, a particularly wise hermit who eventually achieved Total Enlightenment and ascended to the heavens.
Orzag had a hermitage by a stream that flowed from the top of a rocky hill and splashed down the cliffs. Orzag claimed the calming noise of the falling water was responsible for his great wisdom. Pilgrims came to sit at his feet and ask for his advice. Orzag became very popular among wealthy people, who gave donations to the hermit in return for his teachings.
Eventually Orzag had enough donations to found a Temple. The Temple was built on the site of the original hermitage and was built around the bubbling spring at the hilltop. To enhance the sounds of the rushing water, a series of fountains and cataracts were built to catch the water as it flowed downhill. Orzag passed to a higher plane, but by now the Temple had taken on a life of its own. Now calling itself the Temple of the Fountains, it grew to the point where the entire hill was a fused mass of columned temple buildings, waterfalls, founts, aqueducts, pools and cisterns, all bubbling and roaring and gurgling.
It is said that Holocaust the Dragon learned of the wealth of the Temple and came to claim it for himself. The noise of the fountains kept the monks from hearing the wingbeats of the approaching dragon. A column of steam rose over the Temple Hill for many days after the invasion.
The Dragon himself inhabits the only chamber large enough to fit him comfortably: the Hall of the Spring, from which the legendary water of wisdom bubbles. There he surrounds himself with the treasures he has gathered through the ages, constantly sorting and counting and recounting, eternally suspicious that someday somebody will come to steal his hoard.
**
So, after all that setup:
The adventure consisted of three essential encounters. In the first, the party sneaks behind the waterfall , pokes around a bit, finds a group of bullywugs and their crocodile pets who have taken up residence here because the dragon considers them too lowly to be a threat. This is supposed to be the sort of encounter where hostilities can stop at any time, since neither group cares about the other at all, and the bullywugs then can impart the information that only a few days ago they were invaded by another group of guys-with-swords, they fought, and the bad guys went up the stairs; the bullywugs licked their wounds and sulked.
In the second encounter, the party comes across a broken extravagant fountain room. This is where a group of clever orcs has left some monsters to keep the rear clean: some gargoyles, some ogres and some ghouls. This is also where the party can find an important clue: notes that the thief from 100 years ago, an orc, left regarding how he stole the dragon’s treasure.
In the third encounter, the party comes across a group of orcs in the room directly under the dragon’s lair. They’re very quietly reopening the sealed secret portal (by using oozes) left behind by the orcish theif from long ago. Their plan: steal the tribute. Also, drop false clues, to be discovered by the dragon, pointing towards Three Rivers, and left on the 100th anniversary of the first theft. If this plan succeeds, the orcs get the tribute and they get to break up the alliance.
Actual gameplay sort of followed this, but we were hampered by group composition. First, I had seven players. That’s a lot to manage with well-behaved adults, let alone kids. Second, half the kids were under 10. I should not have allowed that to happen; younger kids do not have the span of attention necessary to last through a 4-hour round, especially if they have to wait for six other players to act before they get another turn. Third, some of the kids older than 10 (not the kids of friends) were light on maturity. These three facts led to a very different party dynamic than I had last year, and it was significantly less fun as a result. That having been said, the basic mission of giving kids a fun time with something like D&D was accomplished.
The first encounter went more or less according to script. I did my usual bits about having the kids draw the maps, and that went down fine. However, the kids did not get the increasingly broad hints dropped that the bullywugs were not necessarily the enemy. Slaughter commenced, and as this was set up to be a lightweight fight, they didn’t encounter any serious resistance. I finally determined that in order for there to be any actual survivors to derive useful intel from, I would have to have an elderly bullywug appear after the fight was over, plead for his life, offer treasure, etc., and also tell everything he knows. Even then the kids had to have a pitched debate regarding whether to off the guy. Fortunately Flagyard’s player realized he was sufficiently paladin-like that Sanon had to be kept in check, and no murder happened.
I had to skip the second encounter. Time was running short, and I was running out of patience with the kids. They were constantly getting up and running around, leaving for long stretches, picking at each other, etc. We were two hours in, so I called for halftime and let everybody stretch their legs. I knew what was going on; kids were bored and I was not accomplishing my goals.
So, we skipped directly to the final fight, and there was a lot of interesting going on there: the orcs, even though they spotted the humans early, studiously avoided making loud noises; the oozes were being used to melt iron restraints plugging the secret door; I had kids make various skill rolls and dropped assorted clues. The kids chose to engage the orcs head-on, which was perfectly acceptable, but they did miss the hint about not making noise; all of them were screaming various bloodthirsty oaths and the like. At the end, when the orcs were all dead, I had the dragon rip the lid off the room and give hard looks to the party.
At this point the group did basically redeem themselves by doing the smart thing: they blamed the missing pendant on the orcs and claimed they were just there to foil their theft, and coincidentally stop the attempt on the tribute money. They also dropped a lot of flattery. They were allowed to live, and not as cattle either, at the cost of leaving all the treasure they had found thus far in the Temple. They succeeded in their goal, mission accomplished, phew.
And that was it. I didn’t have the great time I had last year, and I think that while all of the kids had fun sometimes in my game, I also think they were all sometimes significantly bored. Things to consider for future:
1. No kids who are too young. Their span of attention is shorter, their reading comprehension is often a lot slower, and they just slow things down. There’s a reason you’re supposed to be 10 or even 12 to play D&D.
2. Probably cap the game at 5 or 6. 7 is a challenge even for adults.
3. Consider having a backup DM to handle things like wrangling requests for drinks, going to the bathroom, etc.
4. STOP DOING GAME PREP AT LAST MINUTE. (all the above notes were written today.)
But: I got a bunch of kids to play D&D, or at least something superficially like it! That’s pretty cool.
Event Listing – Youth D&D: Many Happy Returns
Game System – D&D (Simplified Variant)
Teaser – “It's the classic dungeon adventure: brave venturers must enter the lair of a dragon, navigate hazards, battle monsters, reach the fabled hoard of treasure, and add treasure to it. Wait, what?!”
From the introductory notes:
Four hundred years ago the Great Worm Magghadoratha, known commonly as Holocaust, came to the civilized lands near the Free City of Three Rivers. He attacked the Temple of Fountains , about twenty miles from the City, and drove all the monks from their halls. He took up residence in the Temple itself and has lived there ever since.
At first there was open conflict between the dragon and Three Rivers. The dragon would steal cattle and strafe the town. The City would send regular attacks against the dragon’s lair. But then an invasion of orcs came from the north. The dragon and the City joined forces to repel the orcs. An uneasy truce developed.
The arrangement was this: the City would bring the dragon tribute, basically a large yearly bribe in gold and magic. They would also bring the dragon food. In return, the dragon would help the City by eliminating any threats that came along, such as the occasional monster or orcish exploratory force. Both sides agreed not to attack each other.
This truce has held for two hundred years, and the dragon has become accepted as just another part of the history of the town. The truce was tested almost a hundred years ago when the dragon claimed that thieves had broken into its lair and stolen some of its treasure. Only a great deal of diplomacy and added treasure kept Holocaust from rising up to attack Three Rivers once again.
It is now the day after Tribute Day. The Grand High Mayor, Dornal, has hastily summoned your band of heroes to City Chambers for an early morning conference.
From the initial briefing notes:
The Grand High Mayor, Dornal, is very angry. He is also very frightened. One of these is common. The other is not.
“We have a situation,” he explains. “Yesterday was Tribute Day. Hector here,” and he jerks a thumb at a frightened underling, “has just come back from the Temple of Fountains. He delivered 80,000 pieces of gold and a chest full of magic to Holocaust in his lair.” He pauses to glare at Hector. “Unfortunately, he also brought something back with him.”
“It was a perfectly understandable accident,” Hector says, flustered. “There was some green goo on the ground and I stepped in it. I guess I stepped in something else as well.” Hector brings forward a small golden pendant. It is flat and the size of a coin, in the shape of a salamander and set with red jewels.
“It stuck to my shoe,” says the miserable Hector. “It must have been part of the dragon’s hoard. It came out of the Temple with me and I didn’t discover it until a little while ago.”
“The dragon knows every coin and every bauble in its hoard,” the Mayor cuts in. “He’ll miss this pendant before long. The fact that he’s not breathing fire down on us now only means that he hasn’t missed it yet. We’re going to fix that.” Dornal takes a deep breath. “You guys,” he says, indicating the party, “are going to break into the Temple of Fountains, return this pendant to the hoard, and get out without being discovered.”
“AND,” he adds, glaring sternly at the less trustworthy-looking party members, “you’re not going to take ANYTHING. Or ELSE.”
He turns to an ancient dwarf. “This is Hounzan,” says the Mayor. “Four hundred years ago he was a novice with the Temple. He was there when Holocaust attacked, but he escaped out a service tunnel at the foot of the hill.”
“I may be old, but I still remember the secret entrance to that passage, behind the Three Cranes Waterfall. I can give you directions to find it again,” says Hounzan in a quavering voice. “You should be able to climb that passage all the way up to the lair of the dragon.”
“But don’t get caught,” adds the Mayor. “And don’t get eaten. And for goodness sake, DON’T TAKE ANYTHING!”
The seven characters. Don’t blame me; my kids invented the names.
AJIHAD is a wind-dervish, a kind of warrior who fuels his martial skill with anger. Originally from the Plane of Elemental Chaos, Ajihad is committed to defeating evil by getting really angry at it and hurting it a lot. Ajihad’s lord and father, the Djinni Lord Ma’hadma, has promised Ajihad’s services to the town in exchange for some political favor.
ARIN is an Elvish Zephyr, a kind of military doctor. The Zephyrs believe that the north wind brings with it healing powers, but also sweeps away trash. Zephyrs actually throw their scimitars like boomerangs and wind brings it back to their hand; they fight in melee with rod-like clubs. Arin came to defend Three Rivers in a battle and has never left.
ASIA is an elvish Cold Witch from the Living Glacier of Kuuron. Her people shepherd cold on behalf of the mighty glacier that is both their home and their God. The Living Glacier made a prophecy that someday it will need the help of the City of Three Rivers; Asia is here to help Three Rivers in order to gain the goodwill of that City.
FLAGYARD THE DESTROYER is a warrior and death-knight, an intelligent and self-willed form of undead. Normally undead are evil, but Flagyard suffers under a curse placed on him by a paladin; he must do good works for a hundred years, and then he will be released from his torment and fall to dust. Flagyard has twenty years remaining.
JARK THE PERCEIVER is a human inquisitor. The ultimate detective and avenger, Jark seeks out hidden evils and exposes them to the light to contain or destroy them. Jark is actually a member of the City of Three Rivers’ police force, and he is frequently assigned to the City’s most difficult and sensitive of cases.
MARK THE TEMPLAR is a human wizard and swordsman. He has wandered through every corner of the world in his never-ceasing quest to learn everything about the world that there is to know. Although his adventures have taken him far and wide, he is beginning to feel like settling down, and so he has adopted Three Rivers as his new home. Now he combats threats to the town using both sword and spells.
SANON is a dragon-born warrior and thief. Sanon’s family is derived from green dragons; she can breathe a toxic cloud of poisonous droplets that burns opponents. Sanon was caught red-handed by Jark in the middle of a burglary; instead of jail, she chose a probationary sentence doing good works for the City of Three Rivers.
A bit more information on the Temple of Waterfalls:
THE TEMPLE OF FOUNTAINS
The Temple of Fountains is an ancient and contemplative order of monks. They were founded by Orzag, a particularly wise hermit who eventually achieved Total Enlightenment and ascended to the heavens.
Orzag had a hermitage by a stream that flowed from the top of a rocky hill and splashed down the cliffs. Orzag claimed the calming noise of the falling water was responsible for his great wisdom. Pilgrims came to sit at his feet and ask for his advice. Orzag became very popular among wealthy people, who gave donations to the hermit in return for his teachings.
Eventually Orzag had enough donations to found a Temple. The Temple was built on the site of the original hermitage and was built around the bubbling spring at the hilltop. To enhance the sounds of the rushing water, a series of fountains and cataracts were built to catch the water as it flowed downhill. Orzag passed to a higher plane, but by now the Temple had taken on a life of its own. Now calling itself the Temple of the Fountains, it grew to the point where the entire hill was a fused mass of columned temple buildings, waterfalls, founts, aqueducts, pools and cisterns, all bubbling and roaring and gurgling.
It is said that Holocaust the Dragon learned of the wealth of the Temple and came to claim it for himself. The noise of the fountains kept the monks from hearing the wingbeats of the approaching dragon. A column of steam rose over the Temple Hill for many days after the invasion.
The Dragon himself inhabits the only chamber large enough to fit him comfortably: the Hall of the Spring, from which the legendary water of wisdom bubbles. There he surrounds himself with the treasures he has gathered through the ages, constantly sorting and counting and recounting, eternally suspicious that someday somebody will come to steal his hoard.
**
So, after all that setup:
The adventure consisted of three essential encounters. In the first, the party sneaks behind the waterfall , pokes around a bit, finds a group of bullywugs and their crocodile pets who have taken up residence here because the dragon considers them too lowly to be a threat. This is supposed to be the sort of encounter where hostilities can stop at any time, since neither group cares about the other at all, and the bullywugs then can impart the information that only a few days ago they were invaded by another group of guys-with-swords, they fought, and the bad guys went up the stairs; the bullywugs licked their wounds and sulked.
In the second encounter, the party comes across a broken extravagant fountain room. This is where a group of clever orcs has left some monsters to keep the rear clean: some gargoyles, some ogres and some ghouls. This is also where the party can find an important clue: notes that the thief from 100 years ago, an orc, left regarding how he stole the dragon’s treasure.
In the third encounter, the party comes across a group of orcs in the room directly under the dragon’s lair. They’re very quietly reopening the sealed secret portal (by using oozes) left behind by the orcish theif from long ago. Their plan: steal the tribute. Also, drop false clues, to be discovered by the dragon, pointing towards Three Rivers, and left on the 100th anniversary of the first theft. If this plan succeeds, the orcs get the tribute and they get to break up the alliance.
Actual gameplay sort of followed this, but we were hampered by group composition. First, I had seven players. That’s a lot to manage with well-behaved adults, let alone kids. Second, half the kids were under 10. I should not have allowed that to happen; younger kids do not have the span of attention necessary to last through a 4-hour round, especially if they have to wait for six other players to act before they get another turn. Third, some of the kids older than 10 (not the kids of friends) were light on maturity. These three facts led to a very different party dynamic than I had last year, and it was significantly less fun as a result. That having been said, the basic mission of giving kids a fun time with something like D&D was accomplished.
The first encounter went more or less according to script. I did my usual bits about having the kids draw the maps, and that went down fine. However, the kids did not get the increasingly broad hints dropped that the bullywugs were not necessarily the enemy. Slaughter commenced, and as this was set up to be a lightweight fight, they didn’t encounter any serious resistance. I finally determined that in order for there to be any actual survivors to derive useful intel from, I would have to have an elderly bullywug appear after the fight was over, plead for his life, offer treasure, etc., and also tell everything he knows. Even then the kids had to have a pitched debate regarding whether to off the guy. Fortunately Flagyard’s player realized he was sufficiently paladin-like that Sanon had to be kept in check, and no murder happened.
I had to skip the second encounter. Time was running short, and I was running out of patience with the kids. They were constantly getting up and running around, leaving for long stretches, picking at each other, etc. We were two hours in, so I called for halftime and let everybody stretch their legs. I knew what was going on; kids were bored and I was not accomplishing my goals.
So, we skipped directly to the final fight, and there was a lot of interesting going on there: the orcs, even though they spotted the humans early, studiously avoided making loud noises; the oozes were being used to melt iron restraints plugging the secret door; I had kids make various skill rolls and dropped assorted clues. The kids chose to engage the orcs head-on, which was perfectly acceptable, but they did miss the hint about not making noise; all of them were screaming various bloodthirsty oaths and the like. At the end, when the orcs were all dead, I had the dragon rip the lid off the room and give hard looks to the party.
At this point the group did basically redeem themselves by doing the smart thing: they blamed the missing pendant on the orcs and claimed they were just there to foil their theft, and coincidentally stop the attempt on the tribute money. They also dropped a lot of flattery. They were allowed to live, and not as cattle either, at the cost of leaving all the treasure they had found thus far in the Temple. They succeeded in their goal, mission accomplished, phew.
And that was it. I didn’t have the great time I had last year, and I think that while all of the kids had fun sometimes in my game, I also think they were all sometimes significantly bored. Things to consider for future:
1. No kids who are too young. Their span of attention is shorter, their reading comprehension is often a lot slower, and they just slow things down. There’s a reason you’re supposed to be 10 or even 12 to play D&D.
2. Probably cap the game at 5 or 6. 7 is a challenge even for adults.
3. Consider having a backup DM to handle things like wrangling requests for drinks, going to the bathroom, etc.
4. STOP DOING GAME PREP AT LAST MINUTE. (all the above notes were written today.)
But: I got a bunch of kids to play D&D, or at least something superficially like it! That’s pretty cool.
