OKAY SO I DM’d my first quick oneshot on the 13th and it was! a lot of fun!! even though it was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing and I wasn’t even vaguely prepared in any way whatsoever!! I didn’t even have my dice on me LOL
Things kind of fell into place because I had people who wanted to play, a wacky wizard named Snellywick (and his frog familiar Jimbob) already rolled up for my actual Halloween oneshot so WHY NOT, right?? hah....
Like I literally came up with the oneshot on the spot in half an hour and equipped the team with RIDICULOUSLY unbalanced weapons and stocked the dungeon with a whole bunch of creatures and traps and illusory magic but oh man
the shenanigans... the shenanigans.. . . .smh.............
Basic premise: the party is checking out a modular dungeon-styled tower maintained by the gnome wizard Snellywick (who built it for kicks, basically). Rumour has it that anyone who makes it to the top will receive a great prize for their efforts.
The party consisted of like three elves?? and a pixie. Everyone had darkvision AND passive perceptions of like 13+ so I couldn’t even throw that much wacky stuff at them in the dark, smh.....
The pixie rolled a nat 20 arcana check on the door leading into the tower and then proceeded to dispel the Hallucinatory Terrain that Snellywick had set up before the party even ENTERED the tower, so.. . . . . I knew this session was gonna be a good one L M A O and I immediately had to rework basically all of the floors which had the illusion on them .. , , ,,
and then the drow rogue rolled a nat 20 and picked the lock of a door that was supposed to unlock after they solved the puzzle... so they skipped an entire puzzle floor without even triggering the traps or investigating anything... alright..... it’s cool... not like I had anything planned for that floor anyway... ha..ha.........
the first battle definitely was not scaled for 4 level 5′s and nobody even got hit so like.. alright alright alright alright.........
but! the party did get to read up on Snellywick’s notes near the end and learn more about what they could have encountered in the tower if they had more time (to play) so that was good! It was a little exposition-y but I think it was a fun way to tell the party what else was in the tower since it was already really late at night so players had to leave
And! they met Snellywick’s familiar Jimbob (a really emotionally intelligent but otherwise plain frog that’s like.. relatively, the size of a large housecat for the short gnome wizard Snellywick) and they seemed to really like him so I was really happy about that!
All in all it was a fun and kind of stressful experience (THOSE NAT 20s ARE KILLER!!!!!) but I’m glad it happened because I have a better grasp on Snellywick who might show up again for the Halloween session :^) And I found out that battling actually takes a really long time! So I might have to cut some encounters short in the Halloween oneshot but we’ll have to see...
