Session 5 Judge’s Notes

If you are a member of this campaign, you should not read this.

    Attendance fluctuated a bit this session, with Bill, Brad, and Jake playing the entire session, Everet needing to leave 45 minutes into it (he got signed up for bar trivia by his wife), and Mark joining 30 minutes late but needing to leave roughly an hour later (crying kid). Perhaps especially because we didn’t play on 11/9, I was looking forward to this session all week. I had an absolute blast, and I think the players did too. However, I think I’d really like to get the group up to a consistent five or more players who are able to usually play for the whole session. I think I’ve asked all my friends who play D&D already, so maybe I’ll recruit online? I’m not sure.

    When there is not a large number of players, I believe that group decision-making begins to suffer due to mental fatigue. I can’t blame them: the decision-space is extremely broad in Arden Vul. I love that, though it does present some challenges. After the session, I asked everyone if they were enjoying it, and they all answered in an enthusiastic affirmative because they like the novelty (most have only played 5e before). Our intrepid Caller Brad mentioned that because there are so many choices, he’s not always sure what to do. I think that’s good thing, but time will tell as the players begin to unravel more and more of its approximately 2,000 (!!!) keyed locations - analysis paralysis is a possibility.

    The party’s encounter with the Caprae (goatfolk) was a potential disaster, in my view. I was trying hard to not give anything away when Battista, unaware of the fact that the Caprae and Choirans are a part of the same faction, confidently announced to the Caprae that they were looking for the priestess captured by a bunch of “pig men.” I felt very strongly that there would be a TPK if they actually ended up accompanying the goatfolk to Dieno’s chambers. Once there, Dieno would attempt to charm members of the group, probably Everet, Pif, and Marcellus. If she failed, or the party attempted to resist, she would simply have an unstoppable number of soldiers put them down. I’m not sure how the party would’ve escaped that situation.

    However, the party got lucky, in my opinion, when they off-handedly mentioned their “alliance” with the kobolds. Also, the party did help the two patrols fend off some giant frogs, so I figured the martial Caprae would at least view the group with a little more favor. The truce that the two sides agreed to is enormously beneficial to the party, in my view. Even when a random encounter only indicates one patrol, the Beastmen would likely best the party of mostly flimsy level 1’s in combat, though it would be very bloody on both sides. I’ve decided that the Beastmen are mostly patrolling the area for scouting reasons, but perhaps also to hunt or forage for food - a beast cannot live on dried mushrooms alone. However, Dieno has stopped paying tribute, so the party will need to choose a side (I think I will want to illustrate this by having the party witness Craaastonorex immolating a patrol or two).

    The players’ decision to rest overnight in the ruins seemed extremely questionable to me, but later one of the players said it was because the Caprae said not to follow them and they didn’t know what else to do. Still, at least they had the good sense to retreat a bit into the room off the long stair.

    Finally, FINALLY, the party has actually entered the dungeon proper. It only took them five three-hour sessions. I do think this is due to the large number of random encounters they’ve rolled, but also that the first few areas they explored (the Tower of Scrutiny and the ruined palace) were extremely dangerous, so they had to back out. I think my decision to place Gosterwick about a day and half’s journey from Arden Vul is playing into this. When considering the distance and the probability of a random encounter, the players should average only about 1 random encounter per journey to or from the ruins. They’ve been rolling a lot more than that, but I think that’s because they’ve spent a lot of time in the well-trafficked ruins.

    I rolled a total of 6 giant centipedes on a 1d4+2 for the upcoming encounter. I think some people are going to get stung :)