Playing D&D with the newbies today was interesting because, in short, they began to genuinely discover their agency as Player Characters.

Having previously explored the Lakeside Ruins across from Stone Harrow, the party had withdrawn with their prize: the Bone Key that Elias had hired them to retrieve. Today’s session started with them back in the village and wanting to go shopping.

We had some fun interaction scenes with the Blacksmith, Ethan the Elder, where they bought an old crossbow and quarrels, a nice long bow and arrows, a round iron shield, some chainmail, and traded off some of their gems and jewellery. In reality, he stiffed them for the goods but they didn’t realise so that’s all ok.

They then visited the rumoured local “Wise Woman”, a Halfling named Ellamina who was making stew out in a big cauldron. One of the characters, Willem, recognised her as perhaps being from the “Lakeside Rats” – a gang believed to be a thievery guild. Long and short, they bought a very expensive 2-dose bottle of “Ellamina’s Red Potion” (of healing).

While at Ellamina’s, the fighter named Freya tipped over the cauldron to distract their mark so that Willem (the thief) could try and steal another potion. He got a bottle but not what he expected: the label read “Gaseous Form” and contained a viscous blue liquid with bubbles of thicker red stuff floating (like a lava lamp).

Following this, the party decided… “Hey, let’s go hunting!”

Out to Mossfell they trekked, north of Stone Harrow some miles. They picked up the trail of some humanoid creatures that looked like “dog-men with browny-tan scales”. They could see the dog-men had two prisoners who looked a bit like Dwarves, so they waited until their prey camped… and then the party attacked!

For me, the key is that the group has started to make choices that are meaningful to them: trading treasures for new gear, stealing things from locals, and deciding to “go a-hunting!” This is the true joy of roleplaying games: you get to have agency as a player.

Lots of fun to run, very easy, and it seems the players enjoyed it to. Who knows what’s they’ll do next, assuming they win the fight they started. We finished on the Kobold cliff-hanger and begin next time in battle!

Game on!