Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Making players cry without actually harming them or verbally abusing them

Last night I ran the conclusion of a dungeon in my bi-weekly (every other week, not twice weekly) Chessenta campaign. There were a total of three opponent factions in the final battle, some cultists, a blue dragon, and a brass dragon. The blue and the brass dragon were tangling atop a pile of treasure, crushing the treasure each time they moved or missed with an attack. After that was resolved, I had a list of randomly generated treasure that was being crossed out as the dragons fought and stumbled around.

It was pretty awesome. One of the players ran in and grabbed the dragon in order to forcibly remove him from the room to stop the treasure from getting entirely destroyed, and when the dragon eventually got back in the room, the party rushed him to at least stop him from moving.

The fight featured some neat monsters that were fun and challenging, but not frustrating. Proving once again that ongoing damage is a good mechanic.

Overall it was a fun session that ended up being more lucrative for the party based on the party's tactics and actions, a fine thing if you ask me. We also learned that dragons HATE blowguns.

3 comments:

  1. I could handle being verbally abused, my teammates do it all the time. But you broke our treasure before our very eyes, then felt it was necessary to read off all the items that were shattered beneath dragon Reeboks with a big grin on that bearded face. You are a cruel dungeon master, indeed.

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  2. Well, I was describing what was being broken as it occurred. It's only fair.

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  3. I've never felt like my build was more perfectly designed for a situation than when I really, REALLY don't want an enemy to be standing somewhere. Carrying a Large dragon around by his tail and then slamming him into a wall is about all that I could have hoped for out of this build. ;)

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