The hard story beats should be as follows:
* Time has passed. How did the players spend that time?
* Part time labour
* Traveling somewhere
* Elaborate vaudeville prank
* Authority figure announces threat to town.
* Large animal
* bandits
* poisoned water supply
* Players prepare for the threat
* Hunting supplies
* ambush spot
* dousing rods
* While setting out to deal with the threat, problems arise.
* Rival adventuring group.
* Hostages
* large toad drinking the river dry.
* Problem dealt with, return conquering heroes
* complications from earlier problem
* new relationships
* rewards
Session 2 time! This ones fairly ‘simple’ as things go. We’re still in the ‘low stakes’ and ‘save the town’ phase of adventuring. This is levels 1 to 4, roughly. So the problem this time is a simple ‘hunt the dangerous animal’ as a bounty of sorts.
This is an opportunity to introduce additional systems should you care to. Encumbrance, camp supplies, food/rations, inventory management and so on.
The announcement.
Hopefully the players take the ‘warning’ of the announced threat seriously. As in they properly prepare for the threat. They come up with a plan, interact with your NPC’s to get supplies, then enact that plan. A lot of players might go off ‘half cocked’ as it were. Instantly heading into the wilds relying on your DM good graces (or spells) to handle any issues along the way. Do disabuse them of this notion, be harsh and poke holes in whatever ‘preparations’, or lack thereof, they’ve made.
The threat.
The threat should be something the NPC’s of your world are less capable of handling.
There’s a bit of DM advice I’ve read a while back, the adventuring party handle problems even when stronger, more powerful, NPC’s exist in the world. Said NPC’s are usually otherwise occupied when dealing with problems. Or they’re stuck in a certain location. Druids are only super powerful in their circles/forests. Wizards are stuck in their towers. The old retired guildmaster just can’t be bothered.
The problem.
Depending what the threat was, there should be some kind of complication.
In a hunt, there’s a second animal. Water is scarce. Second adventuring group interrupts to steal the kill.
Whatever you decide on, it should make things interesting beyond simple combat. The second adventuring group gets stuck in and injured, do your players rescue them? While searching for water you spot the animal early, but the player is alone. Spot cultists performing a ritual, is that more important than the original quest?
The return and any complications.
They’ve solved/fought/beaten/found whatever problem you put before them. That’s all well and good but perhaps there were some issues that need resolving before the session ends.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
One of the rival adventurers got back early and is claiming all the rewards. Person offering the quest reward was actually broke and can’t pay. A popular NPC didn’t make it through the drought and there’s a funeral to attend.
Generally speaking this is a small issue that can be resolved easily. Probably just through talking, or a general menacing aura kind of thing.
Complication delt with, session 2 is over. Level up to 3 in preparation for next time.
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Session 2 was pretty good. We’re a player down due to real life so Brother Elon is not a part of this.
The time passed interim moments went as such.
Milo made use of their entertainer background and played guitar for the townsfolk in the Cup and Crow inn. Milo being a university student knew MAYBE two songs. One of which being Mr. Brightside by the killers. The townsfolk were in awe at the fantastical and unusual sounds Milo produced on the guitar. A townsfolk, Mary the weaver, asked if Milo provided lessons. They also made the attempt to ‘read’ or ‘learn to read’ but that got shut down with the ol’ word scramble thing.
King worked with the butcher. Which I made Bill the farmer the one who needed butchering services. So the event went that one of the cows didn’t provide a calf last season so it was time for slaughter. A relatively tame medieval animal stunning and bloodletting scene later. The animal is butchered.
Taro made the attempt at hunting for hide armor suitable animals. They were the dwarf however. I made that player look up the density of Carborundum and imagine a hollow cylinder for their characters body. Turns out they should have been 16 tons or something. So we settled on an even one thousand pounds. As such they’re luck with hunting was poor. They didn’t have a ranged weapon and a survival skill check didn’t produce much for traps either.
Crispin “Thaddius” played at guard duty. They were along side Tom the fearful, and always luckily present at the gate, guard of the town. A minor argument about who’s turn it was to wear the one set of rusty chainmail the town had ensued.
Next I set the four of them at a table in the Cup and Crow inn to just let them interact for a bit. General conversation happened about ‘how bored’ and ‘poor’ they were. So when it was appropriate I instigated a commotion in the center of town.
Three of the players acted like regular people and used the door. Crispin decided to smash through the window action movie star style. Greta was not pleased. It’s hard to get glass out there and they were put in by her late husband. Crispin is not the Greta’s good graces.
Cutter the woodsman/carpenter is speaking with the guildmaster about a huge bear that he saw in the woods. Problem being that it’s too close to the town. Guildmaster declares an emergency and the players immediately step up to deal with the problem.
They also IMMEDIATELY leave town to deal with the problem. The bare minimum of preparations. King did grab some ‘regular people food’ but they’ve got no camping gear and are walking into the forest.
The first night out I introduce the complication of ‘why is Crispin feeling hunger for the first time’. They’re a lizard folk/dragonborn and consume magic. So They’ve got to eat a spell levels worth of food per day. In this case it was the goodberry spell from Milo the druid, but they also attempted a guiding bolt to the back of the throat which I did say crit and dropped Crispin from 22 hp to 0 in the single spell.
Morning comes, Taro the dwarf slept fine, they’re made of rock. Milo the elf did trance ‘sleep’ and was fine. King got lucky on their constitution roll for sleep. Crispin did not get good sleep on the cold hard ground and gained a level of exhaustion.
Leonard the hermit showed up. Knew where the bear was, wanted it’s meat, was willing to show where the bear currently is. Crispin did the “faux pas” of knowing a characters name without them being introduced because the player read the ‘status’ screen I place out over the DM screen.
An inkling of a plan was put into motion where King asks Leonard about how to deal with the bear. They go harvest some mushrooms that when the bear eats should give it lethargy
Travel a bit more and setup the cave battle map. They do a bit of druid scout form scouting. Fun note about magic hurting and the transformation sequence isn’t great, but doable for the character.
A flaw in my play at this point. One player said they were scouting, and I focused only on that. I should have said ‘what are you guys doing while Milo is scouting?” because in hindsight they should have been able to do stuff.
Milo, in vampire bunny form, got halfway into the cave. At this point I had the other adventuring group blunder their way into the cave after the bear. Everett, Nelly, and Gary engaged the bear.
Combat starts, time freezes, and shadows darken into D&D ‘pitch black’. They get into the cave, witness Everett get their shit rocked and arm broken. Gary is injured and bleeding. Everett escapes from the cave and runs away.
Bear combat goes fine. Minor complication of second bear entering the combat notwithstanding. Leonard shows up and they butcher the bear.
Don’t eat bear meat kids, they’re full of parasites and will make your every living and moving moment painful. But this is D&D so such concerns are not paramount!
Trek back to town, talk with Nelly and Gary along the way.
Everett is extolling a fake story about how he slew the bear but lost his companions at the inn. Players drag him into the guild where he gets ‘geased’ into completing five quests for free.
Commendations and a rank up for the group. They’re Rank 1 in the guild!
Note to self, no rewards for Crispin, he owes a new window to Greta. Complaints have been lodged.
Leveled up to 3 for the characters.
Some flashback tokens were used in game, a redo of a combat turn and picking up the remains of Everetts shield. As such there were still two left over that needed a separate scene.
Taro got an explanation of the adventurers guild ranks. Rank 0 = ID. Rank 1 needs five quests. Rank 2 usually needs twenty quests. Most people stay at Rank 2. Rank 3 needs schooling and the nearest is the 'gildmoore adventuring school'. Ranks 4 5 and 6 are bigger and special.
King got a hole in their new backpack and got it patched up by Cole the cobbler/leather worker. Cole was concerned about the quality of his work and promised to be kinder and quick with repairs.
Whole session lasted about 6 hours. A good amount of time.