Session 1: Behind the Scenes

This first session ended up being quite short, both in terms of playing-time and content. It took a while to get settled and into the mood for playing D&D.

As a DM, my aim for this campaign is not to railroad the players in the slightest - I have no overarching narrative or main villain that I am expecting the players to play through or conquer. Instead, my goal is to present the players with as many possible story hooks as I can, and allow them to choose which direction to head in, and which quest chains to follow up on.

Because of this, there was no easy way to get started - to introduce the characters to each other. I had vague ideas of the players all being part of some sort of mercenary squad, or bounty hunters, or some other "group" that would require them to work together. However, no one seemed very keen on this idea, and it didn't fall naturally into anyones back-stories.

What ended up happening was a rather awkward twenty minutes in which Malkeith role played too well to want to meet anyone new, Krakon was stuck outside the beer garden for the majority of the introductions, and Lily White had to wander over to the conversation at the bar randomly. The whole thing felt pretty forced, which made me feel like I hadn't set up the situation well enough. Maybe I would have been better off throwing them all in jail for a series of small infractions! That would have forced them to talk to each other!

In order to get things rolling, I threw in an encounter that I had already browsed through - a bar brawl from the Rescue at Rivenroar adventure. The encounter ended up being just as awkward as the meet & greet part of the game. This is partly due to the fact that everyone was still unfamiliar with their abilities and the 4e rules, especially the players who have never played D&D before. This is to be expected, but it does make it hard to keep the action gripping, and the events moving. Hopefully as the campaign progresses this will become smoother. It did lead to a few entertaining moments though, as players tried to come to grips with their abilities. For example, Malkeith was quite excited about the fact that casting Light is a free action to him, and while shouting "LIGHT!" at the top of his lungs, proceeded to cast the spell upon everything around him.

The other reason this encounter was a bit choppy is because I didn't take into account the fact that most of the battle would take place in the doorway to The Hanging Garden. This meant that all of the players were in each others ways when trying to cast spells, or that the hobgoblins were unable to fan out and attack more than just one player.

Still, as far as first sessions go, I suppose it didn't go too badly. I think that in future I will have to try harder to keep everyone on track in order to get through more content in a play session, especially if we continue to play on work nights. Currently, it's just too easy for people to degenerate into random conversations, which personally I think is fine. The problem is when these conversations go for twenty minutes!

Session 1: The Beer Garden Brawl

Vashaar and Mashar enter The Hanging Garden, which they have heard is a great place for new comers to ease themselves into the hustle bustle of Tamalin. At its entrance stands a hulking goliath, working as a bouncer. Inside the beer garden, they see a drunken dragonborn in fine clothes sitting grumpily at the bar, being served by a half-breed shifter, and a few drunken patrons sitting around. A bard sits under a tree strumming away on his lyre, boasting to those closest to him about his racing prowess.

The pair approaches the bar, and learn that the dragonborn is named Malkeith. He is surly and untalkative, interested more in drinking beer than anything else. The bartender, La'al, welcomes the new adventurers to Tamalin, and happily answers their questions about the city. While Vashaar and Mashar attempt to get to know Malkeith, they are joined at the bar by a female shifter, who slinks down from her perch in a tree in the corner of the garden. Lily White, the shifter, is reticent but still willing to meet new people. She informs the newcomers that she is in the city looking for information about her kidnapped daughter.

Suddenly, the goliath bouncer comes crashing through the entrance to the garden. Behind him are a motley crew of hobgoblins. Holding burning torches, they attempt to set the beer garden on fire. Though the many patrons in the garden shy away from the fight, Vashaar, Mashar, Malkeith, Lily White, and the bouncer Krakon all spring into action, fighting off the attacking hobgoblins. The fight moves out of the garden and into the street, where Mashar executes a fantastic flip through the air in order to get behind one of the attackers. Malkeith takes a moment to summon a mage hand to grab himself another tankard of beer from the bar, before throwing himself into the battle.

When the enemy hobgoblins are defeated, the five adventurers are approached by a severely wounded member of the guard. He questions them as to what has happened, mentioning that there have been outbreaks of goblin activity at the main Eastern Bridge leading into the city, and that he was injured in a battle close by. Before the adventurers can rally in order to heal the soldier, he dies at their feet.

Meanwhile, the other patrons of the bar have sprung into action, and are ineffectually attempting to put out the fires that the hobgoblins have lit at the edges of The Hanging Garden.