What I like about Dungeons and Dragons is that it is communal story-telling. Everyone contributes to the story and how the campaign's narrative plays out. Usually this is through their characters, but the players themselves can also work interesting changes by just their presence or absence.
See, I'm one of those players that isn't satisfied with ignoring a character whose player didn't show up for the session. I want to know what happened to them; where did they go, what are they doing, etc. So the DM at the time provided a good reason, such as eating bad mushrooms or getting drunk after a victory. That sort of thing provided fun flavor. However, the truly interesting thing happened after I became the campaign's DM.
To set the stage, the party had been trying to free a large group of people who had been enslaved by a hobgoblin army. These people were toiling away in a gold mine near the hobgoblin war camp. In the course of gathering allies for a raid on the camp, the party exited a Lost-World style plane through an arcane portal (long story) and decided to use this magical device to spirit the slaves away.
Two players dropped out at this time so we decided that their characters would stay on the other side and prepare a camp for the slaves to rest after their flight: preparing simple spears, gathering food, etc.
As it happened, the main army had departed the camp and the camp itself had fallen into decay, disorganized and lacking in discipline. This allowed the party to sneak into the mine because the goblin guards were sleeping. The bard decided to cast Leomond's Tiny Hut to block the entrance. We would use the portal device to free the slaves by opening the portal inside the mine.
This is it. This is the moment that I have been building up to.
See, I'm one of those players that isn't satisfied with ignoring a character whose player didn't show up for the session. I want to know what happened to them; where did they go, what are they doing, etc. So the DM at the time provided a good reason, such as eating bad mushrooms or getting drunk after a victory. That sort of thing provided fun flavor. However, the truly interesting thing happened after I became the campaign's DM.
To set the stage, the party had been trying to free a large group of people who had been enslaved by a hobgoblin army. These people were toiling away in a gold mine near the hobgoblin war camp. In the course of gathering allies for a raid on the camp, the party exited a Lost-World style plane through an arcane portal (long story) and decided to use this magical device to spirit the slaves away.
Two players dropped out at this time so we decided that their characters would stay on the other side and prepare a camp for the slaves to rest after their flight: preparing simple spears, gathering food, etc.
As it happened, the main army had departed the camp and the camp itself had fallen into decay, disorganized and lacking in discipline. This allowed the party to sneak into the mine because the goblin guards were sleeping. The bard decided to cast Leomond's Tiny Hut to block the entrance. We would use the portal device to free the slaves by opening the portal inside the mine.
This is it. This is the moment that I have been building up to.
The Free-the-Slaves arc took five weeks to complete, and over each of those weeks a new player came by for that week only (with one exception). So each week the session would start with the party running into another adventurer who was trying to free the slaves by themselves. It started to get ridiculous at how poor the security for the mine was when so many people could independently sneak in. One character gave the impression that he had wandered in and had no idea where he was.
We all had a good laugh about this. One player even joked that the party had done a better job securing the mine than its hobgoblin owners. That was true.
The story was written so that security would be lax at this point in time. However, nothing I could have done would have underscored this plot point as thoroughly and hilariously as this string of new one-time players. Adding them as NPCs would have been pointless and lame. It was the real-life consequence that made it memorable.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
We all had a good laugh about this. One player even joked that the party had done a better job securing the mine than its hobgoblin owners. That was true.
The story was written so that security would be lax at this point in time. However, nothing I could have done would have underscored this plot point as thoroughly and hilariously as this string of new one-time players. Adding them as NPCs would have been pointless and lame. It was the real-life consequence that made it memorable.
Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.
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