The hard story beats should be as follows:
* Players get to town somehow.
* Given a ride in a cart
* Trek into town on their own
* follow a mystical animal
* secret fourth thing
* Get introduced to the local authority
* Adventurers guild
* Local Lord
* Village Elder
* Get their first quest
* Kill the goblins
* Clear out the dungeon
* Giant rats in the celler
* Do said quest
* DnD combat, probably pretty standard stuff
* Turn in quest, but there’s some intrigue
* Rival party claims their success
* wrong goblins
* Dungeon is mad
My personal stamina for gaming is around 5 hours in person. And that’s with me being a PC, not a DM. So I’m expecting to run maybe one or two combats per session. And as this is the ‘first’ session with combat, I’m not planning on pulling any tricks as it were. DnD combat is pretty dull if you play it ‘straight’. Enemies tend to be bags of hit points with pointy sticks that want to get into mêlée combat and stick there. Later sessions are when you pull out the interesting things. Specifically I would suggest that combat in later sessions is never just ‘kill the bad guys’. Always try to have an objective that players can do or work towards. Rescue the hostages, Chop down the tree, cross the river, anything other than hitting the hit points out of enemies.
With that in mind, welcome to the new world level 1 PC’s! I hope the DMPC instantly dying a horrible arrow filled death gives you the correct impression about keeping your origins secret and safe.
They’ve got to get into town now or to a place where they can get their bearings and somewhat start working on whatever main quest the goddess foisted on them. In this game the people who killed the DMPC were merchants/traders and are happy to ‘rescue’ the ‘slaves’ that evil ‘transmigrator’ took upon entering this world. Lucky them that the good guys were there to help!
What’s that? Your players are level 1? but my good sir I’m actually a level 17 trader in these parts. It’s a real pity you never got the chance to grow before being captured. Even the modest guard over there is level 33. Listen, we’ll get you to the next town and help you get yourself registered. A damn shame that Transmigrator took every one of your belongings.
Long story short, ham it up being over protective and condescending to the players. Hopefully they pick up what you are putting down and they can come up with some form of cover story for why they’re level 1 and in the wilderness. Whatever it is, have these people immediately accept the explanation.
This is a good opportunity to put in a scene or two during the travel to town. Describe clean air, how it doesn’t smell like burning garbage, and that you can hear birds instead of cars. Try and set a tone of adventure. Maybe have the caravan masters children be super interested in where they come from. The inquisitiveness of children are dangerous!
Eventually they reach town. I’m going with a bog standard Adventurers guild named “The Adventurers Guild”. Creative, I know. We’ll say that out here in ‘the wilds’ this is the closest thing to national authority as can be. We’ll say there’s also a village mayor for more local affairs. We have our characters introduce themselves to the guild receptionist, and get registered as adventurers. Feel free to throw in heckles by other adventuring groups about the low levels and ‘weak’ classes the players have.
At this point I want to emphasize something that wasn’t important till now. Your players will have DnD character sheets, but the NPC’s will have ‘system’ boxes on index cards. Take this moment, or perhaps have already done this during character creation in session 0, to make up index cards for each player. I would say you should emphasize that the two systems should not match up in the slightest. A level 20 Fighter in DnD is a god on the battlemap for consistently hitting things. A level 20 fighter in Animé bullshit land is basically starting out in life. However you decide to mess with the numbers, I would suggest that the system boxes on index cards have next to no relation to whatever actual stat block you need for them to run DnD combat with. Keep your players guessing or give them hints via ‘the system’, have fun with it.
In town, registered, time for their first quest! Quest board ho! Something simple for the first outing perhaps. Goblins are nearby, take them out. But the players have no gear? They can ‘deal’ with it by finding clubs of wood in the form of a tree branch (tone down the combat because they aren’t equipped as first level characters) or they borrow money to buy starter gear (they’re in debt now, fantastic motivation to earn money) however they decide to proceed, do a scene where they forge out into the world as any new adventurers would.
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DnD has the ‘action economy’ for most combat. As such, the side with more ‘turns’ usually has the advantage. With this in mind, Animé goblins are normally something people mow down not unlike grass. DnD goblins might take one or two sword swings each, and a standard fight would have like 16 of them or so. So the DnD Goblins, that the animé townsfolk think are no big deal, will actually be a big deal for the DnD players.
An option to consider is sending the players out with a ‘guide’ or someone to keep an eye on the new people in town during their first quest. If you do go this route, or the players request it, consider having them notice something wrong with how the goblins act. The specific thing will be the DnD combat happening. However that looks to the ‘regular’ people of this world is up to you, but what I would suggest is that the goblins are much more aggressive and coordinated than they would be normally.
With the goblins defeated, the players head back into town to the guild house. The trip itself should be uneventful, but perhaps they run into ‘trouble’ in town itself. In this case, it’s the other adventuring group that would have normally taken on the goblins (after waiting for the reward to increase because no one else is willing to deal with them). Have them mock the players, calling them weaklings who obviously cheated. Maybe a tussle happens, let it play out like a tavern brawl.
Have the receptionist be so surprised at the players success, maybe they expected it to take a few days, or for them to give up. Either way, the players have exceeded expectations. Let them reap their just rewards from the quest.
Call the night here and have the players level up to 2 in preparation for the next session.
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Overall, the session went exactly as planned!
Set the group on the cart and let them interact and talk to each other for a significant amount of time. They introduced themselves to each other in character.
An immediate flaw in my preparation occurred as they talked to the cart driver and asked “What’s the name of this land?” and dear me it turns out I never gave serious thought to the name of the ‘kingdom’ or ‘planet’. So I brushed it off out of character and kicked that can down the line.
Hit the outskirts of town, market day. The players plowed on ahead with getting into town. Taro is the genre savvy player who’s direct goal was the adventurers guild. Fun interaction with guard Tom who I gave a falsetto teenager kind of voice to. Think the teenager worker from the simpsons who usually says something like “Sorry sir, but you can’t be here.” I recall that character working in a hotdog stand for some reason?
Into town, led by Gil and Bernard. Meet Julia and get registered as ‘adventurers’. Had the mockery scene by Everett. Milo is ‘soft’ like a bunny. Elon is ‘handsome’. Everett propositions Elon because they’re a ‘priest’ (didn’t remember ‘healer’ in the moment during the previous session). Two of my players got ‘creative’ with what they wrote on the ‘status’ cards and I had Julia comment on that with concern.
All registered, metal dogtag ID plates acquired, they inspect the quest board. Can’t read things, picture of goblin. They attempt to get someone else to read things for them. Everett was not the best choice for this and gives a flippant “If you can’t read this, you shouldn’t be doing it.” So they accept the goblin kill quest, borrow a broken shield and dagger, and attempt to RUSH headlong into the kill things game.
In an attempt to slow them down and actually THINK about what they should do, I have Gil way lay them outside the guild and Bernard directs them to the Cup and Crow tavern/Inn. Three out of the five eat ‘regular’ food (Milo, Elon, King) and the other two get odd stares (Taro, Crispin). King, Elon, and Crispin work for their supper by doing tavern tasks, cleaning, serving, sweeping.
Taro the dwarf takes a walk, do the good scent thing. Find Smith the blacksmith working away. Hands out a couple bits of iron scrap.
Bernard takes his leave, night falls. Milo the elf does their first night with star gazing. The grand spell trances them and they get rested.
Morning, Players borrow two more weapons from Greta, a butchers knife and woodaxe. They then head out west to the farms and meet Bill and Eric the farmers. Milo gets their first ‘taste’ of doing magic (it hurts) as they find a thorny plant to use their cantrip with. Both farmers are on separate, yet close, farms and provide similar information about the goblins. They come from the forest, in small groups, take food stuffs then scarper.
The players plan out the first interaction. They will attempt to negotiate with Elon and Crispin but hedge their bets and have the other three lay in wait. The interaction goes as I intended with the goblins not being very smart or patient and unwilling to make deals without food immediately in front of them. I.e. no promises.
The first “Time Stops” initiative and DnD combat occurs. Six goblins (Monster manual page 166) vs 5 players. A good initiative roll made it basically a roll and Crispin (the lizard folk / dragonborn) uses their lightning breath to good effect. Time resumes.
Taro the genre savvy player IMMEDIATELY dives in with ear harvesting and dissecting a goblin. Milo, the NOT genre savvy player is horrified. Good times are had by all!
Continuing the search for goblins (follow your nose for the scent of sex) they find the clearing where goblins are stirring the pot (10x goblins Monster Manual page 166). A brief discussion of how to approach is immediately decided by King doing barbarian rage charge things and decapitating a lounging goblin. Time stops.
Fight goes fine, goblins slaughtered. When the ‘recipe’ is threatened they kick out the supports of the pot which causes area damage and obscuring cloud of smoke. They escape in the concealment.
Goblin ears grabbed by Taro. Goblin pot rolled back to town.
Back at the guild. Julia congratulates them on an ‘above and beyond’ rating. Five bites and one hundred nibs are paid out. Everett is shamed into working and they grab the remaining quest off the board.
Shopping happens. In the story, they stuck together and did their shopping as a group. In real life every player immediately split up. Some got clothes, Some got a backpack, Weapons, Boots, shields, leather armor. They ran the gamut of every shop NPC I had.
Final scene of “There are no more quests. They don’t come along all that often.” with Julia sets the scene for next session.
No one used a flashback token for anything so I flashed back to the cart trip and had a number of children run up and bother them for stories and questions.
Players leveled up to 2. Got a breakdown from each player for HP, AC, expected average damage, and any neat tricks they think they can pull off.
This whole session lasted until 11:30 pm. So a little over six hours of gaming. I was creatively wrung out and tired. However this did go to show how good writing out the adventure before hand provided plenty of preparation. The players pretty much did what I expected them to do. So nothing was essentially wasted.
One thing that I didn’t do, mostly because I forgot in the moment, was establish Everett and their group as jealous rivals of the main party in a more dramatic fashion. In the story I had them get all up the characters face which led to a tavern brawl situation. In the game they just grabbed the existing quest and shot out dirty looks. So I’ll have to work a bit harder to do the incompetent rivals shtick next session.
Playing again in about two or more weeks from now.