Drink Talk Roll Extended #10: Ignite Your Wagon

Session Recap

After meeting up with the Tonlifter Goliath tribe, the party was given an ultimatum: “Surrender or die in obscurity.” Clearly, a lot had changed in the week or so they’d been away from the group. The party debated surrendering, fighting and running before deciding to surrender and play along until they could figure out a better course of action. Their hands were bound and their weapons taken except for Jedah’s guns because he was able to convince the guards they were harmless. (Oh, the joys of being in a world that is only just beginning to understand guns!)

The party was marched westward across the Axida Plains towards an unknown destination. One day, after their march was done, the party was approached by former tribe leader Nallah who did her best to explain the situation: After the tribe parted ways with the tribe, Tonlifter revealed he acquired the Gnoll bandit leader’s headband. After putting it on, he experienced a sudden shift in personality and challenged and defeated Nallah for leadership of the tribe. Nallah herself was torn between her duty to serve the leader of the tribe and doing good for the world at large. The party tried to convince her to follow her heart and help them but failed.

The party went back to planning on what to do. Breaking out of the ropes binding their hands was fairly easy for Khorr and he went around scouting the camp finding the weapons and discovering a few new magic items in a wagon. Then, Amra came into the picture. He somehow got the bright idea to set a wagon on fire. Seeing that, the guards patrolling the camp assumed it was a bandit raid and immediately sounded the alarm waking up the entire camp including Tonlifter and Nallah. Seeing the commotion the party had caused, Nallah decided to stick by her tribe in the attack.

While the rest of the party dealt with the guards and Nallah, Amra continued to Amra and teleported himself straight towards Tonlifter grappling him by holding onto his back. He then began a contest of strength to remove the headband from Tonlifter’s head. He struggled for multiple rounds taking multiple attacks and a back slam from Tonlifter but with some help from Ulrich, Amra was able to finally remove the headband. With his mind his own again, Tonlifter immediately collapsed and seeing their leader defeated, the Goliaths yielded declaring Amra their new leader.

At the tribe meeting the next morning, a few members objected to an Elf being the leader of a Goliath tribe and while thanking him for his help in saving Tonlifter, Nallah challenged him for leadership of the tribe. Amra conceded defeat in the duel after one hit reverting leadership of the tribe back to Nallah. With all of that taken care of, the session ended as the party began venturing towards the cave Tonlifter had taken the tribe to after putting on the headband.

Fired Up Beyond All Recognition 

Writing this, I’m reminded of a piece of writing advice from Raymond Chandler, “When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.” (Depending on your campaign world’s technology level, "gun" might be replaced by "sword" or "dagger".) I think it’s good advice for a game master looking to stall for time. Especially in games like Dungeons & Dragons, combat can take up a lot of time and gives the players a short-term goal and a feeling of progress as they eliminate the enemies.  

This piece of advice was useful for me as I dealt with a party who decided to zag where I thought they were going to zig. I had planned for them surrendering and reaching the cave before attempting to escape and at least had an idea of what to do had they just decided to run. Their deciding to end things before reaching the cave was not on my list of things they would do.  Never underestimate a drunk party.

Obviously, in this case, it was fairly easy for me. The party was already in the middle of a warrior camp.  Any of the Goliaths could have started a rebellion against Tonlifter; another tribe of Goliaths or some angry Gnolls could have attacked. These might have been random but they still would have felt right in the world the players are in. That they were the ones who gave me an easy reason to start combat was just the cherry on top.

If you’re looking for ideas, sourcebooks and the internet are full of lists of random encounters you can use to fill combats as you figure out the reason for the attack. Here are some quick ideas just from me:

Did assassins show up? Maybe one of them accidentally stole an item that had been marked by a thieves’ guild or maybe your horny bard (or any other class) unknowingly slept with a vengeful noble’s spouse who hired them. These might introduce new complications into the plot like that guild or the noble or it could reinforce or reintroduce the other faction.

Have you already established a BBEG at least vaguely? Maybe they sent some minions down like Rita sending in the Putties and a monster in Power Rangers. People still know that, right?  This is good if you don’t need much added to the narrative but need time to think of your next steps.

Sorry, if this week seems a bit light on info. I’m in the middle of two weekends of conventions but I still wanted to get this out on our usual skip week schedule. I hope I’ll have something from Tora-Con and/or Anime Boston to show you in the near future to make up for it. I’ll see you in the next column. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.