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The Laureate Trials by Monique Franzsen (@moniquefranzsen)
This introductory module, created during RPG Writer Workshop Summer 2019 and designed to be playable with only the D&D5e Basic Rules, invites new parties to pit their agility, wits and brawn against the Laureate Trials to see if they have what it takes to join the ranks of the illustrious guild of heroes, as well as deciding the fate of one forgotten!
“The Laureate Trials contains:
20+ pages of pure adventure An Appendix with anything you might need to reference 3 new magic items A Laureate Guild Invitation handout A Trial of Wits puzzle handout (plus solution) 2 maps to help you run the adventure”
Credits and Thanks
Among the praise for the wonderful Ashley Warren (@ashleynhwarren) and the fantastic RPG Writer Workshop (@RPGWriterWrkshp), Franzsen includes, “I wouldn’t have managed this without our motivating and insightful Discord channel”, which should add further inspiration for those wanting to dip their toes into writing, knowing that there is a dedicated, active and supportive discord.
Editing “Wizardry” Tyson VanOverhill (@Tyson_NW)
Layout – Google Docs template by /u/littlegnome
This is the first time I have seen this great Google Doc template link shared and have saved it for my own writing one day: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dPnlGqboLJIvMm6Qo9LizTHoDQ5XgEHA4MKcLy3kfMU/edit?usp=drivesdk
Monster Stat Blocks by /u/convictedidiot
Another incredible free resource: http://tetra-cube.com/dnd/dnd-statblock.html
D&D 5e Statblock Generator
Maps: The Fantasy Map builder (https://www.fantasymapbuilder.com/)
About the Creator
“Monique Franzsen has been immersed in the role-playing world since she was a child, when she was introduced to dungeon-crawlers on PC, like Mordor and Blades of Exile . She has played and ran all sorts of RPGs through the years but Dungeons & Dragons was her first. She loves video games, sci-fi, education, musicals, gamification and bildungsromans. Come and hang out on Twitter - @moniquefranzsen”
Welcome to the Laureate Guild
The party are invited to the adventurers guild’s annual tryouts. Do they have what it takes to join the ranks and start making a name for themselves?
How to Use this Adventure
There is a full rundown and explanation of all the elements and styles used in the adventure. Perfect for any new or inexperienced DM, while the adventure itself is particularly great for new players, giving them a taste of various aspects of the game.
Adventure Overview
This breaks down the adventure into the three beats/ chapters:
Chapter 1 – Trial of Agility
The party meet the Guildmaster and traverse a slippery obstacle course, while the crowd watches on.
Chapter 2 – Trial of Wits
Aided by a mechanical parrot, the party must solve a riddle to cross the floor safely.
Chapter 3 – Trial of Combat
The part face clockwork combatants and in the trapped arena, before meeting a Warforged and deciding their fate.
Adventure Hooks
Unlike many others, this adventure assumes the party are taking part in the eponymous Laureate Trials, so it’s integral to get them to sign up. To this end three hooks are provided to get them on board.
Primary: The party have been talent-spotted from a previous notable act, which serves as both a great way to tie this to previous adventures and/ or exploits, and as a great way to discover more about the characters and party’s past, strengthening their bonds, making up the history that drew the Laureate Guild’s attention. This also comes with a nice wreathed parchment handout in the appendices
Secondary: The Guildmaster puts on a showcase in town where the PCs can meet her, become acquainted with the guild, and their lucrative and exclusive contracts.
Tertiary: (Just a small aside about me, I really like the word tertiary and don’t think it’s used enough. There’s just something about the ‘er’ and ‘shu/shi’ sounds that are very pleasant and futuristic sounding... Anyways) While the last one came with a new named NPC, this one comes with a new NPC and their hustle, in the form of a gnome who provides jobs and info, whose latest job is for guild members only.
All About the Laureates
This section provides background information on the guild, third areas of operation, how they got their name and rumours about the pins they wear.
Chapter 1 – The Trial of Agility
Scene 1: Welcome to the Laureates
The scene opens with a nice box text that sets the scene and tone, before it’s encouraged for the PCs to introduce themselves to and interact with the Guildmaster, Poll Axminster, and, Jesminder Sarai, another competitor.
Axminster is given a brief, effective description, while Sarai has a full unique statblock, complete with appearance and personality in appendix. While Axminster lacks a unique statblock or direct reference at this point, there is a reference and advice on how to handle the party deciding to fight the Laureates (it’s a bad idea to do so, but it could be ‘what my character would do...’ sad face Franzsen is trusting your players to behave, but due to the formal nature of this adventure, you should be fine.
Scene 2: The Trial of Agility
This first trial sounds like a whole lot of silly fun as the PCs engage in a slip and slide challenge race on a greased course in initiative order, with shoving being permitted and ruled for. This is just as well as depending on how you want to run this trial, the PCs could be racing against various other NPCs. A map can be found in the appendix for the Trial of Ability course.
A bizarre and amusing Hazard Table is provided for those who get shoved off. This scene also contains the Laureate Climbing Boots, which can make things less frustrating for those characters seriously lacking in Dexterity, that provide advantage during this challenge alone. Likewise, the Cordial of Refreshment offered to the party that provide healing, but cannot be bottled or saved for later.
Chapter 2 – The Trial of Wits
This is a puzzle floor trial with helpful, cryptic advice and lightning from the roof that appears to be grinding lower for mistakes. It does, however, have an adorable clockwork parrot called Cog that can help in players get stuck, with suggested helpful hints and reminders. In reality the lightning damage is minimal and the ceiling isn’t actually going to crush anyone, but they add to the tention. Cog, however they are that adorable. The map of the floor puzzle for DMs, a Player handout of the puzzle and the statblock for Cogs are provided on the appendix.
This is one of those things that some folx will take to like a clockwork parrot to cuteness and will almost certainly speed through, while other folx (like myself) will have absolutely no concept of what even is life. Thankfully, both Cogs and a lot of helpful advice and details you can add to keep things fun are provided.
Chapter 3 – The Trial of Combat
Scene 1: Trial of Combat
The party face clockwork training beasts, with the encounter being balanced for four level one PCs with advice for running it for more or less powerful parties. Rules are included for non-combat focused PCs so they can essentially cheerlead for to give bonuses to their hardier peers if they can provide compliments. This is a genuinely great optional aspect to keep the less martially minded PCs involved with a chance for some ridiculous and fun roleplay. Anyone that can mix roleplaying into combat gets my seal of approval!
The arena has random traps that the DM rolls for each round, which can be utilised by canny combats. The map of the arena and the statblock for the Laureate Clockworks can be found in the appendix.
Scene 2: The Forgotten Warforged
In this scene the party face a forgotten Warforged with ample history and a great idea for tying their awakening to the actions of the party during the Trials. The background also allows for the setting to be setting neutral, despite in the inclusion of a Warforged. Although, this could be used in conjunction with Eberron or another setting with hints to a shared cosmology and the potential for crossover. The statblock and personality for the forgotten Warforged are included in the appendix
While the Trials themselves are linear and a specific challenge or some combination of them, the handling of the Warforged is truly down to the players. Details are provided for the different ways this scene could play out, including the possible, foolhardy action of fighting the Laureates (this does not gain entry into the guild for some reason). This moral quandary is something for the party to really sink their teeth into, after flexed their physical and problem solving muscles, and elevates this adventure from a good intro adventure to something quite brilliant. The pacing of the Trials and the build up to this moment truly give new players a taste the various aspects of playing D&D, including the making of difficult choices, roleplaying within the party and with quite unexpected characters.
The adventure ends with the party being welcomed into the Laureates (or possibly waking up in a local jail?), joining the ranks and being ready to face further adventures as guild members.
Appendix
The appendix contains the full statblocks and personality for the NPCs, Jesminder Sarai and the Forgotten Warforged, and statblocks for the Laureate Clockwork and Cogs, the Clockwork. Parrot. Also included are the magic items, the Laureate Climbing Boots, Cordial of Refreshment and Bronze Laureate Pin (which has potential for fun and quests to be given to the PCs when they are off adventuring). Finally there are the Laureate Invitation handout, and the maps for the Trials, including the DM and players versions of the Trial of Wits.
This is an impressively written and presented adventure created using the resources Franzsen had available to her to create a wonderful introductory adventure. There is clear thought and heart to this adventure. This is not going to truly challenge and knock the socks off veteran players, but that’s not the purpose. This is a perfect introduction to many of the aspects of D&D and provides more than enough fun and challenge to make new players hooked and ready for more. Taken in this context and the depth of the final scene, I thoroughly recommend this adventure and think it is a perfect taste of the game for new players.
I reached out to Franzsen with some questions, which she kindly answered:
CoS: There seems to be such a clear design to stages of your adventure. You have a moment for intros, a very silly a slippy first trial, a head scratcher of a second trial, a brawl for the the third and a serious decision to be made at the end that has some quite serious implications to close out. Was this flow intentional and what was your idea design philosophy?
MF: I play a lot of video games and this has influenced my design philosophy. Right from the beginning, I wanted to create a scenario where the players could experience an RPG 'tutorial' - a space where both the players and the characters could run a safe in-universe gauntlet. By setting the module during a contest, this gave players boundaries in how to behave while learning the basics. I wanted to provide a combat challenge, a puzzle, a skills challenge and a way to encourage roleplaying, and hopefully each Trial gives new players a chance to experience these elements of RPGs.
CoS: Somewhat building on my first question, you seem to have a real grasp of the little things to make the elements of the adventure run smoothly both sides of the screen and keep things fun and moving, such as the Laureate Climbing Boots, the adorable Cogs, the Clockwork Parot and the invaluable advice in the Trial of Wits, as well as going into detail and covering all bases for the final scene. How did your background in teaching and roleplaying with children aid your writing of the adventure and covering these really helpful bases and are there any particular insights from these experiences you would like to share?
MF: I was concerned that characters who would not be a naturally strong fit for a challenge still be able to participate. I came up with the Climbing Boots as I wanted low dexterity/athletics characters to compete on a similar footing to more physical characters. As my primary group of players are children, I didn't want any new player feeling like they made a 'weak' choice - kids can be quite fixated on what the 'best' character is. The additional items can hopefully provide a leg up to some characters while not giving the whole party an overpowered boost.
CoS: The Laureate Guild and their organised and respectful demeanour, as well as the mechanical and clockwork aesthetic of the Trials, are clearly conveyed throughout the adventure. Can you tell me your inspiration for the Laureates, the adventure and their theme?
MF: The concept of a tutorial dungeon was one I had right from the beginning and it drove the rest of the choices I made. I wanted the Guild to be seen as a respectable, desirable organisation that could be taken as trustworthy by the players. I just thought the clockwork flavour would be cool! I think they came out of wanting to have a final encounter with some sort of animated golem or sentient training dummy, and the clockwork theme grew out of that.
CoS: Finally, the last scene with the forgotten Warforged really added some serious weight to the player's decisions and asked some much larger questions of the party and who they were than the Trials had before them. Where did this idea come from and was it always your intention for there to be a 'twang' in the end? (I always remember one of my professors at uni saying that short stories [and by extension one shots] should end with a twang rather than a gang). Was their inclusion hinting towards an initial inspiration for this setting-neutral adventure or the potential for a wider possible multiverse to play with?
MF: The RPG Writer Workshop is a powerful catayst! I came up with the idea of the final choice fairly quickly, and it all fell into place during the short month that I hatched the adventure. I loved the idea of the Laureate Guild funding their operations via treasure-hunting and tomb-delving, which was outside the scope of the short module. I wanted the Warforged to provide a future adventure seed, if the players indeed latched onto it as a potential ally. In my playtest group, they used their Laureate Pins to send their Warforged friend messages in many game sessions. I also used the Warforged to lure the party into danger, as well as a season-ending dragon attack!
https://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/284448?affiliate_id=1507682
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