Recently, I’ve been blessed and run a series of really good sessions recently, which raises the bar for me
The last great session I ran was a heist on a Kraken’s Vault in the sunken Dwarven city of Keg Garun to steal Poseidon’s Trident. The basic plan was to create a diversion – using ship bound treasure as bait to draw the kraken away, giving the party a little time to steal the Trident without having to fight the Kraken. To start off with, however, we had a short stint in town.
Context matters. We have been doing planning, rolling, and making overarching decisions over the last session. We played through a full in-game month of decisionmaking. So, we started with an easy fight – a hydra was occupying the town lake, and the party could tear it to shreds. It wasn’t a fair fight – the party barely took damage, and the Hydra was felled very quickly. But it felt good to fight, win, and get back to normal mini-adventures to coax us back into the game. It was short, fun, and helped get us back into the adventuring mindset, along with helping feel powerful again. All this to say, even something trivial like a Hydra Fight at level 15 and its impact is influenced by its context.
Cutscenes can be engaging/The Dream Spell attacks where it hurts. Hova, the PC that’s trying to get the Trident of her god, just watched the town she helped make get destroyed by Vance, a major villain. She saw the first part of the assault as she escaped, but then ran away. Now, as she goes to sleep, she is affected by a Dream Spell. (Make a WIS save) Vance guides her through the destruction of her town, as if she was inhabiting Vance’s body. It’s her own movements that call down the Meteor Swarm, wrecking the temple she has so carefully constructed. It’s her smile that creeps up when she sees the town get annihilated. Now, she witnesses the parts that she wasn’t there to witness herself. She did a good job of evacuating the city prior to its destruction, but while Hova-as-Vance walks the city, they find a small child who came back for a toy for his sister. A child she recognizes. She can only watch in terror, unable to change what’s happening as she/Vance points a bony finger at the child and slowly decomposes his body and turning him into a child zombie. That’s where the dream ends, and Hova is denied a Long Rest.
Want to make a villain hated? Show the players what the villain has done, and then deny them their most sacred rest – thr Long Rest. All this was with minimal input from the PCs, and yet it was incredibly engaging, and made them utterly hate Vance.
It’s okay to have NPCs make the plan. The plan we used to take the Trident was created by NPCs – a captain of a ship and Arlad, a Brass Dragon. It was to have some ships draw the Kraken away so that the PCs, riding Arlad, could jump into the vault without arousing much suspicion. Then, they could navigate through the Vault without having to deal with a Kraken. This was nice because I could plan accordingly, and nicely tailor a full experience for the PCs.
Vertical battlemaps. As the party arrives at Keg Garun atop Arlad, a Brass Dragon, they jump into the water, swimming down to the Vault/Keg Garun’s entrance. They swam past the Death Embrace (big jellyfish) that was guarding the entrance, and made it to the entrance.
Vertical battlemaps are a nice change of pace, and fit really well underwater. As a side note, underwater helps immensely as well, since it’s also a change of pace, since those who were once mobile might no longer be, and others who might have relied on certain strategies find that others are necessary.
Need to raise stakes? Use a timer. The very first thing that happened was, as soon as they entered Keg Garun, I told them they had IRL 4 hours to get the Trident and get out. Combat doesn’t pause the timer because the sounds and feeling of violence provokes the Kraken to come back to its lair sooner. This causes quick thinking, less back and forth, and quicker combat, at least somewhat.
Even in “side quests”, keep the main villains involved. Earlier, a main protagonist, Vance, used Dream to infect a PC’s dreams and deny them a long rest. Now, we have something else – in this ancient city, we find stone tablets and early forms of Glyphs of Warding, warding against someone named Vecna. With a little bit of investigation, they realize Vance is an anagram of Vecna, causing a big “OH SHIT” moment, and confirming earlier suspicions. All this to say – even on side missions, PCs should have the chance to learn about the BBEG.
Let the Players see the effects of their actions. Admittedly, I didn’t portray this well, but the party has been fighting Kraken Priests for the past few levels, and took out the location they were being made. Now, as they explore the ruins of Keg Garun, they find empty Kraken Priest shacks – where the enslaved heralds would sleep, if there were many left. The PCs have done such a number on them that it was almost entirely empty. Some of the more interesting shacks had keys to the Kraken’s inner vault that held the Trident, and the PCs needed to get all of them to get the Trident. Because they needed all of them and were on a time crunch, they got to explore every part of the map quickly, and I gotta say, exploration is quite fun if done properly. Also, it was a chance to expand upon the Kraken and the other creatures that live here, fleshing them all out.
A miniboss is always fun. As the party came about the final area – where the Trident is being held – they found a Juvenile Kraken guarding it. One last fight to get the Trident. As the party fights, they get a taste of what it might be like to fight the Kraken properly. They won, but while they were fighting, the Timer hit 0. It had been 4 hours, meaning the big kraken was here. We finished combat quickly, got the Trident, and they swam towards the entrance.
What goes down must come up. Once the Trident was acquired, the only way out is the way they came in. The enemies they avoided before were now on high alert as the party swam past. They didn’t have time to fight – they could feel the Kraken’s immense presence nearby – a quick escape was needed! All this to say, it’s fun to have the direct consequences for your actions come back to bite you. The Death Embrace towards the beginning was one such example – having to slide by it again, but now with a Kraken on your tail!
Let your players do cool shit/DnD is really cool This, I think, is what makes a session memorable. As we started the second part of the campaign, all the way back at level 11, each PC got a signature item – an item that would grow with them as they completed their personal goals. Each one had a special effect if they destroyed it – basically a “get out of jail free” option. Hova’s was to make a tsunami. Now, the Kraken is between them and the way out, and it takes half a round to get the party grappled. One PC Misty Steps away. Another fails the escape. The third is Hova. With Trident in hand, she breaks her signature item, causeing a surge in the water, breaking the Kraken grip on them and pushing it away, into a wall, saving the party from a swift defeat from the Kraken. This was the brief moment they needed to escape! They hurriedly swam up to the surface and threw a rope up to Arlad, their ride here, who caught it and flew up, bringing 3 PCs with him as the Kraken surfaces and reaches up to attack, but it’s too late. The PCs are out of reach. All because Hova destroyed her special item in a moment of perfection. She changed her old weapon for a new one, showing character growth in a way that couldn’t be had in any other game.
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