So much fun and great for beginner players and beginning dungeon masters!
My 18-year-old son got us all hooked on playing Dungeons & Dragons with a homebrew campaign he created then got too busy with friends after a few months of playing once a week and said he was done. The rest of us wanted to keep playing but we were all new so several of us offered to try the role of Dungeon Master with one-shot adventures to see if any of us were interested in continuing to run a campaign. Our first PC turned DM session went pretty poorly and was difficult on everyone. Needless to say that party member wanted to remain a player and did NOT enjoy the DM role finding it difficult and frustrating. Another party member tried next and while I thought it went reallly well and we all seemed to have a great time he confessed to all of us that it was too much work for him and he didn't want the responsibility but would keep playing if someone else wanted to DM.
I offered to give it a try since I like spending time preparing for the game and reading up but I was very worried I wouldn't be very good at it. I went scouring the internet for help and was led here by someone's (sorry I can remember) list of best adventures for new DMs.
I ran this adventure for just my hubby and 12-year-old son to dip my toe in before trying a session for our whole party. We had such a great time! The layout to this was easy for me to read through one time and feel ready to go. Once we got started I stumbled a lot but the information was all right there for me to rely on and I knew if I could stop worrying and taking my role too seriously we'd enjoy ourselves so I pushed through. As the hours of play flew by we all really got into it and the NPCs and story were fun, engaging, and could be played light or dark depending on your preferences. My group wanted to "adopt" Bombalina as they felt she was such a fun and adorable character and I was thrilled since I just used the name and motive of the NPC as presented in the adventure with the flexibility to really make them responsive to how my players wanted to engage.
The mystery wasn't too difficult to solve but also didn't feel to prescribed. The party felt they had autonomy to pursue what they wanted and as the DM I felt they could get what they needed in a variety of ways. It felt like there were ways to have the right level of combat for the characters desires; my two wanted to fight in all situations and they felt fulfilled when they got to. My larger party has members who prefer to negotiate and they would have liked this adventure too.
This was a great adventure and especially good for a party that includes younger members. It gave me a chance to try being the DM without too much pressure and everything I needed was right there along with the encouragement to go with the flow. What a great first adventure for me to try and it convinced me that I could step into the role of DM to keep our weekly group playing. We are now going on our seventh session in a longer campaign I'm running but I still sometimes need a one-shot and I always look for M.T. Black!
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