Session #1: Dead Jeffery On A Rope

This past Saturday marked the beginning of my days DMing at the University of Miami...over the course of my freshman year here, I was looking for people interested in playing...every now and then I would find someone interested in playing, but didn't have nearly enough people to get a game going...2 weeks ago, I realized that I had enough and began sending out invitations to a preliminary game...

I anticipated somewhere between 6 and 10 people coming, so I printed out a bunch of the premade KotS character sheets to save myself a good bit of time and effort...I decided to run them through Kobold Hall in the back of the DMG to help them learn the game...after all, that's what they suggest it be used for...

Seven people arrived come Saturday afternoon...here's the cast...

       - Katie as Hilga (Lady Dwarf Fighter - Hulk Hogan Impersonator Extraordinaire)

       - Aaron as Melech (Tiefling Warlord - Quietly Plotting To Destroy Us All)

       - Nick as Axe (Dragonborn Paladin - Likes Chopping Things, Then Mending Them Only So He May Chop Them Again)

       - Keith as Goldie (Dwarf Fighter - Apparently Jewish)

       - Raymond as Rus (Human Wizard - Likes Shifting Between Consciousness And Sleep As A Standard Action)

       - Jerry as Garret (Halfling Rogue - A Righteous Individual In The Absence Of An Advantageous Situation)

       - Alex as Rogard (Human Wizard - The Brains, The Looks, and The Useless Chick All-In-One)

So yea...no cleric...

After a 5-minute briefing of how to play ("roll dice, hope for high numbers, have occasional success, become superstitious, have superstition pay off, gloat to DM, TPK"), our freshly recruited heroes were sent to the Kobold Hall by Teldorthan (the cliché dwarven blacksmith) in order to obtain some dragon hide that was stolen from a caravan on its way to town...simple enough...

They started off giving the broken-down caravan a good look over, trying to determine just where the kobolds made off to...unfortunately for them, the kobold raiding party just so happened to be waiting to ambush the first group of folks that wandered by...luckily for them, Garret spotted movement in the bushes so the surprise round was avoided...

INITIATIVE!...

*sigh*...so I used 4 different kobold types against a group of 7 PCs...and all 7 of them got higher initiative than all 4 of mine...a highly unlikely statistical result, but I made up for my misfortune by nearly killing Rus (I am what you'd call an Evil DM)...that battle took the longest because of the large number of combatants and everyone was still getting the hang of how the rules worked...after the 2nd round or so, things started moving smoothly...

After all the kobolds were killed, bodies were looted and nature/perception checks were made to follow the trail back to the kobold lair...but not before Goldie impaled the Wyrmpriest on his own spear and started shaking him around to make him talk...eventually, our bloodthirsty heroes marched off to destroy the remaining raiders and their families...after an hour of forest-wandering they came to a big door built into a U-shaped hill (scrawled in draconic on the front door, "LAIR, SWEET LAIR")...this was probably where they needed to be...

At this point, the Party-Party Party (the group name agreed upon by Goldie and no one else) launched into an incredibly elaborate plan to use Mr. Deady McWyrmpriest and a little Ghost Sound to lure the kobolds out of their hole...an hour or so went by out of game as the players discussed Deady's position, the position of the players, what should be said, etc...eventually all was agreed upon and the plan was put into action...

"Hay! We gots buncha ded humanss at road! Lotssa lewt! Need helps for carrying backs!"

*silence*

Unbeknownst to the party, I had been chuckling quietly to myself for about a good hour or so...because in order to move the game along, I'd nixed the encounter in the first room...their elaborate scheme was for nought...I love it when that happens...thankfully my players didn't mind either...

After some careful scouting through the empty foyer (complete with giant glue pit), the players moved on to scout the second room...unfortunately for me, Rogard listened at the door and knew draconic...

*ahem*

"OH, LORD KURDELMAC! THANK YOU FOR GIVING US OUR DAILY TURKEY! IT IS GOOD TO HAVE THE TURKEY HERE BECAUSE AFTER IT IS DEAD AND EATEN WE CAN SUSTAIN OUR LIVES FOR AWHILE LONGER BEFORE WE ARE INEVITABLY SLAUGHTERED BY SADISTIC LOOTERS! ALSO, IT TASTES NICE! AND THANK YOU FOR BLESSING JEFFERY WITH THE GIFT OF THROWING ROCKS WELL! HE THROWS THEM AWFULLY WELL, LORD! YOU SHOULD SEE HIM!"

This goes on awhile longer...it may have been altered ever so slightly since being spoken...I can never remember my improvised speeches...

Anywho, another elaborate plan was formed (something along the lines of using rocks, hemp rope and glue from the pit to trip the kobolds when they rushed in to kill the adventurers...Ghost Sound was employed yet again, but a mix of kobold cowardice and Hilga's failed attempts to break the door down (frustrated by the prolonged pointless planning) led things to occur otherwise...

Only 3 kobolds and some easily spotted traps in this room...combat ended fairly quickly...moving on...

In the next and final room for the session, the Party met a group of kobolds playing a game not unlike bowling but with more ropes and human skulls...the small crowd were cheering on Jeffery, who was apparently winning...

Time for more planning! Yay!...

The wizards attempted to time their sleep spells so they might THWACK a sleepy kobold with their makeshift tetherball...however, saves were made and action points spent degrading the plan into a bunch of Scorching Bursts (Bye minions! I'll miss you!)...after the first round of adventurer action only Jeffery, one of his fans, and the two drakes who had yet to appear were left standing...I only to THWACK a wizard once before Jeffery was taken out of commission...

Goldie's turn rolled around and he decided to employ an interesting tactic...he dipped a rock he had tied to his rope in the room's glue pit (that's 2 so far), hit Jeffery with it (effectively restraining him with a makeshift grappling hook), pulled him off the ledge he was on (doing just enough falling damage to kill the little guy) and used his corpse to hit one of the drakes...

Thus, a new weapon was born...Dead Jeffery On A Rope...

Well, that's the end of this week's long-winded highlights...tune in next time and watch me try to TPK these damn adventurers...

Upwards of 1107 words...my format of speech causes the machine to underestimate my lung capacity...