One of My Best Sessions Over

This was a few months back. I was running the D&D Encounters (Keep on the Borderlands), and we were in week 6, running through a lost and forgotten temple (magical runes, columns, the whole shebang.)

We had actually missed the previous week, so the plan was to get through not one, but two encounters in one evening. Starting at 7, that meant two hours, two encounters. Not an easy proposition, by any stretch of the imagination.

Now, our group consisted of a husband and wife playing a dwarf cleric and elf assassin, respectively, a pair of 10-year-old friends, playing a human fighter and elf wizard, and a guy who’d shown up a couple of times, who picked up the halfling rogue.

Encounters provides you with six pre-generated characters, and the husband and wife (Daniel and Lynne) had made characters from DDI and the Heroes of the Forgotten Lands book, while the kid playing the human fighter (Tom) built his character from the Red Box (which I heavily encouraged him to pick up). The other two were playing the pre-gens.

As we were about to hunker down and start, the store’s employee came over and told us there was a family there interested in playing as well.

It was a father and mother with two young children. They had never ever played D&D before, and said they would only be available for a half hour. I figured, what the hell, and told them to have a seat. The dad had the two kids (aged about 7 and 8 or so) sit down, and he stood behind them. The mother stood off to the side, watching everything. I also realized they had brought the children’s grandparents in who hung out at another table and sat there looking pretty miserable.

They took the pre-gen human fighter, and I grabbed a mini. I guessed they’d slow the game down for about a half hour, then we could move on, and quickly. Lynne, being a former teacher, switched seats with her husband to be closer to the kids to help out, and we got going.

I made sure to include the kids and let them play, because isn’t that what the D&D Encounters is about? Introducing new people to the game?

I made sure to make everything really descriptive to capture the kid’s attention. They had to swing across a rope to get to the other side of an underground stream, and a few succeeded, while others ended up in the water. Suddenly, they were ambushed by jellies!

I was actually really happy these were the creatures first faced by everyone. No one feels guilty about killing some slime, and the kids thought it was cool they were being attacked by some sentient raspberry preserves. Suggestions flying around the table, everyone effectively moved around hitting one monster after another. At one point, the little ones were given the option of staying to help out the surrounded halfling rogue or escaping to the other side of the river, and they said, “I’m getting out of there!” The rogue survived, and moved on to get himself into some mushroom spores.

In the end, they wrapped up taking all of the oozes and the kobold controlling them, with the wizard (as usual) nearly unconscious. Brian (one of the 10-year-olds) still hasn’t figured out that a wizard isn’t a front-line combatant.

All of this was accomplished in (as I looked up at the clock) 45 minutes?! What?! I couldn’t believe that we got through so much so fast!

Moving on, the heroes climbed a waterfall, and found themselves in a chamber with a raised platform, an enormous rune glowing red. They were ambushed by kobolds, and began fighting back with a vengeance. The wizard asked if he could dispel the rune, which I allowed him to try to accomplish. I was shocked that he was more than willing to spend the entire combat rolling Arcana to disable it (which I allowed). The heroes took down the kobolds, and searched the room. I looked at the clock.

Only 1 hour?! That was two combats with 7 players (two of them kids who love bickering and another two completely inexperienced) in only an hour and 45 minutes!

There were two other tables playing Warmachine that night, so there was lots of shouting, and I would blare out initiative orders to everyone as the game went on. It was definitely one of the most chaotic games I’ve ever run, but it was also one of the very best. You’ll note that the family stayed the whole two hours. I think they initially planned on leaving, but were hooked.

I certainly hope I helped the family decide that D&D was for them. They continued to show up week after week until the season was done.