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View Full Version : Gamer Tales Outstanding session - got a round of applause at the end



Darth Credence
2022-02-07, 05:39 PM
Over the weekend, I had the best session yet of a currently 20 month old campaign. We were all having a great time, but I apparently hit just the right note about 3/4ths of the way through. When it was all over, the table literally applauded.

We have been working towards this point for about a year now. The party's bard was convinced by her manager to perform at the year end festival in the kingdom's capitol, about a year ago real time, and about 6 months ago game time. They have known all along that they needed to be there for that, and I have had it loosely prepared for a long time. They have been bopping around the world doing their thing, stretching it out well beyond what I expected, and to finally get them there was great. This whole thing got kind of long, so I broke it into two spoilered sections - the second is why they applauded.

It started with a fairly typical session for my players - they were in a city, so some wanted to shop, some wanted to drink and gamble, and the bard wanted to work on songs. They proceeded to do their normal stuff, and I was just hoping that at some time on the day before the festival starts, they would all be on the river road at the same time. As luck would have it, they ended up there about halfway through the session, and this is where everything went up a level.

With everyone in place, they heard a rumbling coming down the street. I opened up an animal sound board, and played a bird of prey screeching while attacking, then described a griffon dropping from the sky and snatching up a horse to carry off. With that, the menagerie escape skill challenge had begun! They came to the street from the various buildings they were in, in time to see a pack of five elephants charging down the road. People are ducking out of the way, running screaming and diving into the river, generally just trying to escape. A lot of property damage happened, as the party jumped into action.

They noticed another, lower level party also there and trying to stop things. They tried to give them orders, but were quickly ignored. The bard dimension-doored on top of an elephant, and used animal handling to try to stop them. She rolled well enough to slow one down, while the others continued. The other party had a leader try to jump on an elephant, but I rolled badly, and they fell off. The next two of them tried to take one down like an AT-AT, but failed. The last member of their party jumped on an elephant, and brought it to a halt. By that time, the blink dogs that were following the elephants had blinked out in front. I described them, and the players freaked out about the bone spurs coming off their joints, and took them as a threat. Well, the dogs were simply looking for the nearest meat market, which they made a bee line for. The wizard tried to round them up, but they kept blinking around out of reach. Eventually, they made it into the meat market, grabbed as much as they could carry, and headed back towards home.

The wizard gave up on them, and decided to stop the elephants. He did so with an earth to mud spell. It stopped one cold, and slowed the others down. By the time they crossed, only one was still mobile, and it had the charge taken out of it. Leaving them free to deal with the dancing bears and giant ape that were coming up next. There were four bears, two in tutus and two in tuxes, wandering down the street. The artificer jumped in front of them, and used his pipes of haunting to scare them. They all failed their save, and turned around to get away from the big scary hobgoblin. Meanwhile, the giant ape ended up walking through the escaping snakes (inspired by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), and squished a few. He then saw the leader of the other adventurers, a young blond woman, and picked her up. It headed for the nearest building, and began to climb.

Our blood hunter had made it to that building first, and tried to pull the woman free. He failed so badly, the ape didn't even notice him. WIth the bears done, the artificer flew up and vortex warped her across the street, then attempted to punch the ape. The ape took the blow, then punched back, doing a pretty good amount of damage. (At this point, I was really hoping for the bard to polymorph into a giant ape, but she had gotten rid of that spell at some point.) The bard then, started to clear out the snakes. The blood hunter joined her, and they wiped out all of the little snakes, and then she used thunderwave and crushed the giant one that the others were following. Right about then, the zaftig goliath woman who owned the menagerie showed up to try to stop the animals. Her statuesque 7'6" frame stood above everyone as she charged in to try and break things up. A group of lobstrosities were also making a break for the waters edge, and the wizard quickly mired them in mud as well, on his way to help out with the ape. The artificer got out of the way, to go deal with the goliath woman. Wizard used their portents to force the ape to fail a save against psychic lance, and it was incapacitated. To continue the visual, I had it fall from the building it was climbing, and it crashed to the street below. The other party, joined by a member that wasn't around for the beginning, began to tie it up.

The animals were all rounded up, and the goliath was crying over the dead giant snake - it was the one she did a performance with. The artificer revivified it, earning her undying gratitude. The party explained everything that had happened, she thanked them, and got the people from the menagerie that had started to show up to get the animals back. About that time, the court wizard showed up, looked at everything, and thanked both parties for trying to help. He told them the king would love to thank them in person, and to show up at the castle later that day.

Now, that was all fun. Everyone had a great time doing something other than just trying to kill things. Lots of cool things happened, the above was a condensed overview. But that wasn't what the applause was for. That was for the King. The festival is mostly a music festival - there are other things, but the current king is a musician, and focuses on that. They headed to the palace, and on the way passed throngs of young women hoping to catch a glimpse of him. They didn't think much of this, and continued on their way. They got to the gate and introduced themselves, and the Colonel met them. He seemed suspicious of them, and didn't want them to have access to the King, but he couldn't do anything about it. He led them to the private meeting room, and then brought in the King.

I began to describe his entrance - he strutted into the room, a smile on his face. He had coal black hair piled high on his head, and wore a white jumpsuit encrusted with gems. A long white cape hung from his shoulders, with the emblem of the kingdom formed in diamonds on the back. He carried a lute with him, and as he reached the throne, he threw the cape to the side and sat in his throne. I turned around, put on my gold neostyle sunglasses on, and turned back to them. In a southern drawl, I said, "You're the group that helped to protect the docks this morning, right? Thank you, thank you very much, for all your help."

Jaws dropped at the table. I mean that literally - the wizard's player's mouth was hanging open, as he just stared. The artificer was giggling, and the others had huge smiles. I stayed in character roleplaying that for the next 45 minutes of the game. I was dropping lines from Elvis songs, offered to let the bard come up to the jungle room to work on some music, just all around played it up. Everyone got into it, and we had the most pure roleplaying experience we have had for the rest of the session. When he finally had to leave to attend other duties (and the session time was running out), they thanked him for his time. He left, and the players applauded. I was blushing from how well they took the whole thing. They had also been unsure of who to side with in a brewing civil war, but no longer - they fully side with the King at this point.


I learned a key lesson from this - go all in if you can. If you have a silly idea that makes you happy, embrace it and play it to the hilt. I had a great time doing it, and my players responded. It wouldn't have worked if I had been embarrassed, or held back. Since I just gave it everything, we had a session that I know will be remembered long after this campaign is over and done.

Palanan
2022-02-07, 06:16 PM
Highly, highly silly concept, but sounds like you pulled it off perfectly. That’s some well-earned applause.

As soon as I read “white jumpsuit” I just collapsed into a facepalm. Nice setup there. :smalltongue:

mucat
2022-02-08, 10:04 AM
Was the King elvish? He looks sort of elvish to me.

Ameraaaaaa
2022-02-09, 04:34 AM
This put a smile on my face. Thank you.

Also if elvis isn't a level 20 bard I'm gonna be disappointed.