Crafting a Special Game - Customizing your D&D Session

I run regular after school games for D&D, but I also run one shots, not infrequently for birthdays. When I do that, I have to change the setup a bit. In a long running campaign you have time to develop things. In a one shot you have a strict limit on what you can do.

Birthday games are also different as they are “about” the birthday player, so they have to highlight or focus them in some way. But it can’t be “all” about them, or the other players will get bored. And it also has to be a challenge, it can’t be “too easy”. Indeed, as all eyes are on the birthday player, all the concessions you make to them, all the opportunities you give them, are going to seem “artificial” to some degree. The players know that one particular player is the focus, so of course their particular ability or resource will be key to “winning the day”. So it’s easy to do an OK job at this, but it’s hard to do a good job. 

I did a good job recently, thought I would share.

I loathe predictability, I want to give them something special. I was recently asked to do a birthday game for one of my regular after school players. The PC in question was the party thri-kreen druid. He’s had a run, 7th level, died and brought back to life once, that was the arc of last year’s campaign, paying back the temple for bringing him back.

His birthday game had three players, him, the player of the party fighter/warlock and the party bard. I spent some time trying to decide what sort of adventure would be fun for the PC druid but still involve the rest of the group. Well, the local druid’s coven in my home brew setting has a “rumor” entry on my rumor table, the rumor is that the local coven, which is organized around animal totems and clans, has discovered a secret coven, organized around monster totems and clans. The arch druid of the local coven needs to infiltrate the secret coven, and gather information. He doesn’t know which of his people to trust, so it’s a perfect hook for the party. The party’s druid has interacted with the local coven, and joined early on, but left and was away for a whole calendar year, when the secret coven has only been around for about 8 months as far as the Archdruid knows. 

I love that a pre-existing rumor entry in the setting table met this need, it is more evidence that the setting is robust.

The party represents the perfect group to infiltrate, it has a druid that will know a lot about what is going on, but not a druid that is recognizable to the members of the secret coven, as he has been gone for a while. The small group is preferable, it’s a good combination.

The party decided to infiltrate the rogue druid’s coven, posing as initiates. However, they coud not use magic or any druidic abilities, as this would raise suspicions. The secret coven knows  the main coven is on to them, so they will be on the lookout. The party has to appear to be 0-level nobodies or they will be challenged. So this added a layer of challenge to the process.

All they knew was where the new coven recruited, in the shantytowns and the outlying areas. They approached day workers who were fishing or picking rice and asked them to consider joining, “to find a meaningful life outside of toil and drudgery for wealth”. 

So the party went to the shantytowns and started picking rice, day 2 a cowled, white robed figure shows up, pays off the supervisor, and tries to recruit workers. The party took the bait and said yes. I threw in a wrinkle though, to test to see if any of the party members might be druids trying to infiltrate their coven the cowled figure spoke to them in druidic, hoping any druid in the group might react spontaneously and speak it as well, or at least react oddly. The player specifically said he was not going to respond in druidic, he figured out the point of it immediately.

They were asked to complete a task, there was another group of three initiates there as well. They were to capture and bring back a giant alligator without killing it. The first group back would move on. The party druid asked if he would know enough about giant alligators to give them an edge in finding one first. I gave them better odds, 1 in 8 chance of finding a giant alligator per turn rather than a 1 in 12. They found one after 5 turns of searching. 

No spells, no magic items. They brainstormed a plan to distract, then grapple, then slip a rope around the maw of this beast. The dice were somewhat cooperative and they pulled it off. On the way back to the druid they found the remains of the other group, their hunt had not gone well…

There next task was to find a special bloom, and bring it back, it was also a race, and there were two possible islands to go to where the bloom could be. There were two other teams as well, 3 each, both with giant alligators from the first round. The party druid asked again if his knowledge of plants would help, I told him he knew that the bloom was generally found at higher elevations, so they knew to look for hills on the island. However, they didn’t know which island to pick. I rolled randomly to see where the other two teams went. They all had to get there on their giant alligators. 

On the way there they passed a tortle settlement, all fishermen. I rolled to see if the other two groups would stop and ask questions. They both moved on. The party decided to check in with the tortles, they asked 3 before someone knew where the blooms in question were found, it was on the East island. So now the party and one other group were headed there.

They were now behind, so the party aarakocra fighter/warlock flew ahead, and overtook the competition, homing in on the hills to the far end of the island. Sure enough the bloom was there, and so were three young black dragons curled up around their bases. These plants are 10’ tall. The PC decided to swoop down and grab some of the bloom and take off, that was all that was required. He successfully grabbed the bloom, but woke the dragons (I had rolled that they were sleeping). 

He took off fast, they were slower, but I rolled to see if any of them would try a breath weapon before he got too far away. One did, but was just too far away when it was time to use it. He escaped and returned to the party. 

They had passed the first two tests, capturing a giant alligator, and finding a rare bloom. Their last task was to make it upriver at night on their giant alligators, to find the coven. This was also a test, the first was a test of restraint, could the party avoid killing something but still tame it. The second was a test of shrewdness and speed, the party that gathered information had an edge. This last test was one of teamwork.

The party was paired off with another group who had passed the tests, three people, two of which were as advertised, a brewer and a tailor, the other was claiming to be a farmer but was actually a NPC 5th level fighter with an agenda of his own. Each group had its own giant alligator.

Making them ride the giant alligators put them in the water. Off about a half mile to the west of the river was a huge giant hornet’s nest, sitting atop the nest was a druid of the rogue coven. He has used speak with animals on a number of crows, which sit along the river

When the party approaches, a crow comes back to him and tells him, and then he sends one giant hornet to intercept the party. If the first is defeated, a crow cries to tell him and he sends two, then three, etc. The giant hornets can be held off or avoided in one of a few ways.

The party can “go dark”, putting out their torches, if everyone does so then the giant hornet only has a 1 in 6 chance of seeing them as it is dark and with a crescent moon. So they might avoid it entirely. If they are successful it will report back that they disappeared and they will make it. They can try to shoot it out of the sky, the giant hornet is loud and big, so they all get to shoot at it when it first appears. If it loses more than ½ it’s HP it crashes. If they don’t take it out of the sky then it attacks one of them. 

They can pool their torches, creating intense enough heat and smoke to drive a giant hornet off. If they do this the hornet will attack but pull back, then leave. If they drive off the hornet they have a 2 in 6 chance of making it the rest of the way without another appearing

If they fail the check, then two more appear up river to attack them. If they have gone dark there is a 1 in 6 chance they are seen. If they pool torches again the pair of hornets will dive attack twice and pull back and leave. They can make it the rest of the way without hornets after that

So the party headed upriver. They discussed the druid’s cult, the NPCs revealed that the cult had been actively recruiting, and that they had heard that the cult was a rival to the druid’s cult associated with the city. This was true, the party was agent’s of the city coven

I used the NPCs conversation to add some atmosphere, one of the NPCs asked them if they thought it was strange that their tests had been so dangerous. I had described the dead bodies of initiates that didn’t make it. The players started to ask questions too, how long was this going on? We kept the conversation going for a bit then the first giant hornet showed up. There was surprise indicated for the party, so they spotted it first and it noticed them too late. They all took out missile weapons, bows, crossbows and slings, and let loose at the thing. 

They did more than 50% of its HP in damage, so it came down out of the sky. I rolled to see if it crashed into anyone, and it narrowly missed one of the PCs. Once in the water, wounded, it drowned. The party continued up river with torches lit. I rolled, after 5 rounds a pair of hornets appeared

They decided to do the same thing, but this time the party fighter/warlock, an aarakocra, flew up into the air with a torch, planning on looping above the giant hornets (he was substantially faster than them) and dropping it on them. The party bard and druid, along with the NPCs took out one of the giant hornets with the first volley, and the NPC fighter threw his battle axe into one as it passed closely, wounded it and sending it crashing to the water, narrowly missing the NPCs this time. With both dead the aarakocra PC asked what he could see up in the sky

I rolled to see if he would notice the two most prominent landmarks. One was the giant hornet’s nest, the other was the giant tree where the coven meets. Aarakocra have good eyesight, and they were looking for a druid’s coven, so I gave him a 4 in 6 chance on this, which he passed. I gave him a 2 in 6 on the nest. He rolled that too. So he saw there was a white robed lizard man with thorny vines wrapped around his left arm and a staff at his feet sitting cross-legged on this giant hornet’s nest, hornets were crawling in and out of the nest.  

Then the party started to talk. They were worried more giant hornets would show up. They brainstormed, what could they do? One of them suggested that regular hornets didn’t like smoke and fire, so maybe they could use their torches. They decided the torches were too small. Then one of them asked if they could find a stretch of the riverside that was somewhat swampy and wet with tall reeds or grasses beside. I rolled that it took a turn to find that (I rolled a d20 for the number of rounds). I rolled to see how long it would be until the three hornets appeared and I got 15 rounds (d20 for this too). So what did they want to do? They asked if the reeds and grasses were dry enough to burn but wet enough at the base to prevent a wildfire from spreading through the marshes. I asked them if they knew what marshes were full of, after a pause, “Swamp gas!”, yep, they were right, “so we could ignite swamp gas and kill ourselves!”, I said,”well, you could set off a pocket of swamp gas, your party druid would likely know that, but it's pretty unlikely if its windy. I rolled to see if it had rained earlier that day, and it had not, and I rolled to see if it was windy, and it was, so the bushes and reeds were dry and burned easily but did not ignite swamp gas. They had oil as well, and added that, so in the 5 rounds they started a decent conflagration, one that would hopefully stop when the reeds/grasses burned to the swampy ground. 

Then the three giant hornets appeared. I decided that they would either flee from the fire as they dislike it, or fly to it knowing the party was likely near. I decided it was a 4 in 6 chance they would flee, and a 2 in 6 they would fly closer and see the party near the flames. I rolled that they moved on. The party now had a choice. Stay by the fire for safety or flee. So the clock started. They decided to flee, but took 5 minutes to isolate the fire so it would not spread by splashing water on it’s edges. I rolled to see how long it would be before the giant hornets came back to see if they were there. I rolled 2 turns. 

When they got back in the water one of the players asked me if giant insects had infravision. Boom. They were thinking it out. Note that this is a great example of a fairly standard thing that tables do differently, whether or not a monster has infravision is not always indicated in the description, so it’s up to the DM. 

I said, “your party druid might know”. “Are giant insects the same as regular insects”, he asked, I said, “sometimes yes, sometimes no”. That’s another local variation, in my game I tend to assume that giant X’s are more or less the same as small X’s, but bigger. 

He asked, “do regular hornets have infravision?” I said “No”, as his PC would likely know that. So they talked, and decided to douse their torches, “maybe that’s the third challenge, to get by the hornets rather than fight them”. He was close, it was to use teamwork and smarts, which they had.

So they went dark and directed the alligators to the riverside. Then one of them suggested to go after the man on the hornets nest, rather than continuing up river to face more hornets. The newest batch of three hornets passed overhead without noticing them, and they went in. They arrived at the giant hornet’s nest, and talked. What should they do? The party bard reasoned that this was probably one of the coven druids testing them, so they should just present themselves. So they did, walking out, dropping their weapons and calling for mercy

I decided on an encounter reaction roll, as parley in 1e AD&D initiates one, the bard had a +15% modifier for charisma,I gave a +10% modifier for surrendering, and a +5% modifier as the druid was indeed testing them, and they made it right to his doorstep undetected. Pretty boss.

He rolled a positive result, congratulated them, mounted a giant hornet, and told them to follow him. He took out a small rod with a wooden sphere at the end, stuck it into a small sack, and when it came out the sphere was swarming with crawling, luminescent insects. He used this like a torch as they flew to the tree. The Tree was enormous, nurtured by the druids, it had small houses on the sides of the main trunk and a huge crook in the branches where they conducted their ceremonies. They had made it. All six (the three PCs and 3 NPCs) climbed up to the top, where they saw 28 white clad druids, 16 in ettercap masks, 8 in dragonne masks, and 4 in marsh dragon masks (these druids worship monster idols, the main coven in the city worships animal idols and wears animal masks). One druid stands above them all

In the middle of the crook is a creature with a lion body, a tail, and three heads, each with a hood connected to a silver chain, the chains going back to three white clad druids. The creature is a chimera, the holy beast of the monster cult druid coven. The party has to decide what to do, they were to locate the coven and gather information, then report back. They will have to decide how to proceed. They managed to get there without using any magic or betraying their mission, so they have to decide to continue to be stealthy or to speak out

There is a ceremony for the initiates. It involves the chimera, if the party passes they are invited into the coven. Then they will have to decide to betray the coven, or to turn against the coven that sent them. Or to wait it out and gather information. They are clearly outnumbered, so they can’t just shoot it out, and they are starting to wonder who is in the wrong, the coven that sent them or the coven they are trying to join. It’s delicious, they don’t know what to do yet, but they are super stoked to figure it out. Peak D&D!

What impressed me about this session was that it was “about” the Druid PC, and he was helpful, but not decisive, nor did the other’s contributions not matter. The party bard decided to speak to the tortles, and came up with the plan to bag the giant alligator. The party Fighter/Warlock secured the plants first, and came up with the idea to douse the torches. The party druid did contribute with class abilities (knowing about the giant alligator, and knowing about the plant) but also through cleverness, he surmised that the giant hornets might not like smoke and fire, and that they should burn reeds to get them to leave.

One of the things I love most about role playing games is that PCs are a unique combination of their stats and their player. 1e encourages the players to not rely exclusively on their stats, and to use their abilities in innovative ways. Their motivation is lethality, the game is very dangerous, if you don’t get creative there are situations you can’t beat. And even if you are in a combat situation, success is not guaranteed without guile. In AD&D my players have to be smart to survive, even with magic available it can be challenging. These sessions were loved by the players, they love “beating” the challenges on their own. 

The next session will be a blast, I’ll report on it too.