Library D&D – Session 1 – Kobolds! Zillions of Kobolds!

I hosted my first session of 5th Edition D&D at a local library this past Wednesday. The game takes place in my (mostly) OSR campaign world – Etinerra. The game was a “drop in” kind of game, if someone wanted to play, they got to pull up a chair, given a pregen and set of dice and GO!

I had a total of 7 players, ranging in ages from 7 to probably mid 30s. In the brave party were:

• An elven princess fighter, named Daisy (my granddaughter)
• A human princess fighter, named Emma (my OTHER granddaughter)
• A human fighter, named Mad Martigan
• A human rogue, named Mathias
• A halfling rogue, named Dobby
• A human cleric, named Deanna
• An elven wizard, named Spyro

All set up and ready for players!

I had intended on taking pictures during the game, but of course, trying to DM with 4 children under 14, one excited 16ish year old boy, 2 adults… it was interesting. Fun! Here’s the highlights:

• The party, traveling in a caravan agreed to help Simon, the merchant who hailed them down, to recover his wagon from kobold bandits.
• Kobolds were indeed looting the wagon, including two who were duking it out over a crate. One was stuffing it’s face with foodstuffs. A trail of sacks and debris led into the dark forest.
• Daisy began her run of perfect roll-to-hits by sniping a kobold standing on the wagon. 
• Mathias executed an amazing sneak up, kick a barrel into one kobold and slice another in half. 
• After dispatching the kobolds, Simon discovers his necklace to woo his love into marriage is missing!
• Emma, the kindhearted princess, refuses the offered reward and pledges to help. 
• The princesses push the wagon upright and back to the main caravan while Mathias and Dobby go into the woods to scout. 
• Suddenly a cleric appears!
• Mathias abandons Dobby in the woods to go warn the others of kobold voices approaching.
• Dobby proceeds to use his kobold language skills to distract them, allowing the party to close.
• Dobby tries to deceive the kobolds, but fails. Combat!
• Kobold fight #2! Lots of fighting, and one PC gets wounded badly
• Cleric to the rescue!
• After defeating ten more kobolds, the party decides to not follow the trail of debris into the woods. It’s getting dark out! Suddenly an elven wizard appears!
• After arriving in town, Mathias, Spyro and Dobby discuss getting into a bar fight.
• End of game!

I had been worried that running 5E was going to be too big of a change and that I would be a fish out of water. Nothing could be further from the truth. Combat was different, but I kept it flowing pretty fast and furious. I stuck to the old school style of “describe it to do it” and only used a skill check once when failure was interesting. The roll failed!

Having experience as a DM  made the use of the newer edition pretty easy. At the end of the day, D&D is D&D. I’m glad I stuck with the Basic version at first to ease my way in, but we’ll see how it goes moving forward.

The more challenging aspect of this game was the age difference and keeping things simple and black/white for the younger folks while keeping the interest of the older folks. Dropping in role play moments and hints of my campaign world worked for the adults. And a couple are interested in my AD&D campaign! W00t!

Next session, a band of adventurers are going to follow the trail of debris into the woods to see where it leads… I wonder if there will chaotic caves there. Hmm…. maaaaaaaaaaybe! 😉