The characters carefully examine a room with mysterious holes in the floor. They are disturbed by giant beetles and unknown cultists and return to the village early. The characters sell some loot and some of them later examine the enchanted forest nearby, moving into it for a few yards.
Observations
- The session was quite slow and few things happened: The characters spent a lot of time searching for traps, fighting minor random encounters, selling loot and debating whether to explore the enchanted forest or not.
- A potential problem rears its head: The players are responsible for pacing and risk management and cannot rely on the DM to provide either.
- That said, I should have asked them to either examine the forest together - or not at all. There are too many random factors for me to foresee how long various endeavours might take, so solo quests are not really an option.
- Grognardia has a nice article on the The Rhythm of the Old School that has a more positive view on some of these issues.
In a nutshell
A session that was too slow for my tastes.
Johann realizes, that the pace of the last session was to slow for his taste.
AntwortenLöschenBut the group learned by painful experience, that anything besides painstaking searching, inventive extrapolation of possible hazzards and careful tactical analysis and planning is not simply dangerous, but deadly.
The group has now sufficient statistical data to know, that while heroism might now and then leads to exceptional results, in the long run heroic deeds, brave charges, and eve selfless exposition to danger to protect comrades is a road that leads sooner than later to death.
If the group is not a group of desperate fighters for our life, but of an adventurous group, aimed to amass treausures while still staying alive to see this treasures spend, than the pace will go down, as long as the members of the group keep there witt together and do not start adventuring because of boredom.