An amusing session with the School D&D Club players in our Fellmyr game today, centred around their return to the Lakeside Ruins for the fourth expedition. The main event was an encounter with some Giant Centipedes, leading to two of the four adventurers being poisoned and me giving an extended visceral description of vomiting.

Young people seem to love the visceral and gory descriptions I throw into the mix during battle. This session they also seemed to enjoy my pantomiming around the table, gesticulating and making vomiting sounds. They especially loved the moment when one of the poisoned characters threw up over one of the others.

And all of that came from a random encounter roll. You see, in Basic D&D you roll 1d6 per 2 turns ( 20 minutes) and if you get a ‘1’, well, there’s a random encounter. It was odd for a moment too because I rolled for Giant Centipedes, then couldn’t work out where they were coming from.

The adventurers were in the middle of searching a 50′ x 50′ chamber with only one entry point visible. It didn’t make sense that the creatures were behind them in the corridor and I didn’t want them bursting through the secret door. The obvious answer was that the Giant Centipedes were already there.

“In the far corner, hidden by the shadows, you can see a nest,” I said.

The creatures were surprised, so the adventurers launched their assault – flaming oil thrown and a manic knife a-stabbing from the two Magic-users – leaving the Reaction Roll moot. The fight was short but Blue Short (the Elf) and Ignatia (a Magic-user) got bitten and both failed the Save versus Poison.

The rules say they are ill for 10 days and can’t do anything significant. We played this as vomiting sickness and cramps, leading to the party deciding to bug out and get back to Stone Harrow. Grumbling from the healthy players was silenced when I pointed out that they waste an awful lot of time arguing.

Next session – the last before the Christmas holidays – promises to be more focused because they (apparently) have a plan. I can’t wait to find out what they do.

Game on!