Member
Something I rarely get to experience, in Dungeons and Dragons 5e, is personalized interactions for my player character(s).
I had joined a sortof pickup game for Adventure League with a brand new level 1 Aasimar Cleric. I entered the story where several other low level players had failed to take a small stronghold held by orcs, and ogres. Additionally, one of the player characters had been captured in the previous session. It was incredible daunting and I was concerned how we could succeed at all. My first decision was to use all my limited healing to restore the melee characters as they planned to soon try a rescue attempt. I was the youngest and most inexperienced at this table and my character's physical description must have inspired the dungeon master to craft the most uncomfortable but interesting roleplay experience I've ever had.
Our strategy was to lure away a majority of the forces while the remaining players did the rescuing - however I had no idea if any of us had the place mapped out for any of this to work. Our mage and rogue attempted to start reconnaissance but due to poor dice rolls we were discovered instantly and faced a horde of barbarian like orcs. Their leader "Beserga" took one look at me and instantly struck me down with her reckless attack, and her forces captured two other characters.
We awoke, stripped of our gear, in binds, and circled by the orcs along with the captive player and two npc hostages. Beserga took an interest in my character's motivation "to help others" while being ignorant to the events established in the module. Her tribe had been kicked out from their home by a dragon, forced to raid local settlements, and take back...captives for mating. I agreed to my ignorance but threatened her that my race carries infernal as well as celestial blood but she wasn't concerned by hereditary curses. I, as a player, was stunned and impressed where the session had gone. With more time I could have provided a better response to Beserga but I was busy with other issues at the time.
Beserga made us an offer: For every player character that stayed, she would let an NPC walk free. Despite my personal feelings, my character agreed to stay. However, the other player characters, true to their own natures, rebelled. They put up a good fight but were cut down. I was moved into a separate holding cell with the rogue (he offered to stay too) while the NPCs were set free. At this point the DM told us that the guards had fallen asleep which presented us with a moral dilemma: stay and honor your promise to the orcs - or escape. The rogue had no qualms escaping. At this point I couldn't bear to sacrifice this character and left.
Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have to present sympathetic villains for every goblin, dragon, or evil necromancer you encounter. In fact, it makes combat difficult with the knowledge that you could solve a problem nonviolently. But, boy does it make the world feel real. Afterwards the dm and other players congratulated me for my engagement with the game; the dm revealed the story set this encounter for level 6 which made me feel a little better about getting rekt.
My drawing of my character:
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2…
I had joined a sortof pickup game for Adventure League with a brand new level 1 Aasimar Cleric. I entered the story where several other low level players had failed to take a small stronghold held by orcs, and ogres. Additionally, one of the player characters had been captured in the previous session. It was incredible daunting and I was concerned how we could succeed at all. My first decision was to use all my limited healing to restore the melee characters as they planned to soon try a rescue attempt. I was the youngest and most inexperienced at this table and my character's physical description must have inspired the dungeon master to craft the most uncomfortable but interesting roleplay experience I've ever had.
Our strategy was to lure away a majority of the forces while the remaining players did the rescuing - however I had no idea if any of us had the place mapped out for any of this to work. Our mage and rogue attempted to start reconnaissance but due to poor dice rolls we were discovered instantly and faced a horde of barbarian like orcs. Their leader "Beserga" took one look at me and instantly struck me down with her reckless attack, and her forces captured two other characters.
We awoke, stripped of our gear, in binds, and circled by the orcs along with the captive player and two npc hostages. Beserga took an interest in my character's motivation "to help others" while being ignorant to the events established in the module. Her tribe had been kicked out from their home by a dragon, forced to raid local settlements, and take back...captives for mating. I agreed to my ignorance but threatened her that my race carries infernal as well as celestial blood but she wasn't concerned by hereditary curses. I, as a player, was stunned and impressed where the session had gone. With more time I could have provided a better response to Beserga but I was busy with other issues at the time.
Beserga made us an offer: For every player character that stayed, she would let an NPC walk free. Despite my personal feelings, my character agreed to stay. However, the other player characters, true to their own natures, rebelled. They put up a good fight but were cut down. I was moved into a separate holding cell with the rogue (he offered to stay too) while the NPCs were set free. At this point the DM told us that the guards had fallen asleep which presented us with a moral dilemma: stay and honor your promise to the orcs - or escape. The rogue had no qualms escaping. At this point I couldn't bear to sacrifice this character and left.
Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have to present sympathetic villains for every goblin, dragon, or evil necromancer you encounter. In fact, it makes combat difficult with the knowledge that you could solve a problem nonviolently. But, boy does it make the world feel real. Afterwards the dm and other players congratulated me for my engagement with the game; the dm revealed the story set this encounter for level 6 which made me feel a little better about getting rekt.
My drawing of my character:
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2…