Goodman Games

This is intended to be the inverse of the 'storytime' threads... Here DMs should tell how they created an encounter or session or scene or ongoing circumstance that played out well, scenes that the players clearly enjoyed or won't stop talking about.

What inspired you to make the encounter what it was? Why did you include the elements that you did? What was the one thing that seemed to push the encounter from serviceable to memorable?

If this thread goes as intended, we'll all have a place to look when ideas run low, and find something to kick-start our brains, or even something to swipe wholesale (who's going to know?).

And... Go!

I guess no one has had an idea for a great encounter in quite some time. Since 4E I have DMed only two games and the last was a TPK. I used DCC#11 and the party was wiped out in areas 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5. At the beginning of a long corridor the party comes to a trapped portcullis. After getting by they find a secret door and the undead dwarves that were stabbing them through the wall when they were stuck at the portcullis. With the battle going against them the PC's decide to run down the corridor deeper into the dungeon. That did them in. The corridor was trapped three more times.... TPK.

This idea is not mine. It belongs to Chris Doyle(who was nice enough to sign my copy at GENCON a couple of years ago) but could be used in any dungeon crawl as a great encounter. This was one of the $2 modules.

DCC Fan,

Congrats on the TPK!

That corridor of traps has doomed many PCs. When I wrote that encounter, I never expected it to be such a killer. But time and time again, players fall (literally) into the trap. The only downside: the party gets paranoid and search everything floor, ceiling or corridor for traps in the rest of the adventure. This ends up slowing down the game. Still, its an enjoyable string on encounters.

Did you convert it to 4E, or did you run it in 3.5?

I played 4E and took a character up to 4th level. I really tried to like it but at the end of the day I just couldn't get into the new edition. So I ran DCC #11 and all my games in 3.5.

P.S. I had a much better description of what happened but by the time I had typed it up I was asked to log back in. When I did the whole thing was gone.

I've been away from these forums for quite awhile -- funny to come back, see this thread bumped, and meanwhile I'm planning to start a new campaign in the Summer with DCC11 after the current one ends...!

Gnomeboy,

Please post updates on your progress through DCC11. Of all the DCCs I penned, DCC11 is my favorite. I've run it probably half a dozen times, and each time folks fall for pit trap! The best compliment I rec'd was for a special slot run at GAMA a few years ago. A store owner seeked out the DCC11 table specifically to play even though he had already played it once and GMed it once, and he could have played in other events at any of a dozen other tables run by other companies in the same room. At the end of the session, he said it was a blast! And yes, they too blundered into the trap. Love it

chris

I shall endeavor to regale these boards with robust tales of mighty explorers after truth who cross paths with evil and villainy...

Or at least tell you how swiftly they fell down the pit trap.