This won’t be 500 words but I still wanted to post something.
Played D&D tonight. I gave the players a combat that wasn’t just hitting enemies until their hit points fall out. And they seemed to enjoy it but it did drag a bit and become a bit of a slog. Took the whole session and ended on a low note of the bad guys getting away with the information they were there to get, thanks to a crafty evil badger.
The bad guys also set a blazing fire at the start to draw the heroes away from their target, some log books and notes and receipts. They also dropped a few hints as to what they’ve been doing, and left behind casualties and stragglers that the party can loot.
It was a success but could have gone better. I’m always hard on myself for technical issues but I should realize that those are going to happen regardless.
Still, it was fun, and I got to challenge the party. They’re hitting 5th level and they are now ridiculously capable. It’s only going to get harder from here on out.
Lessons learned: I did not need that many enemies for the plan to work. They were spread out and did not cluster in one spot, so fewer of them would have meant the combat ran faster, mostly because I would not have to keep track of so many different statblocks and actions.
Essentially I don’t have to plan much for next session, since I already drew up the plans for what would likely happen next, and I guessed correctly! Yay, me!
Seriously, though, I love this game. It’s my favorite thing to do.