D&D Epic Adventure

Picture from organisers' FB page

[Spoilers Alert for The Mystery of Kryptgarden]

That's a picture of my table at the D&D Epic Adventure I attended yesterday. The premise of the event is that five different factions have decided to launch a multi-pronged attack on the stronghold of an evil cult. Members of the various factions gather at the great hall, are organised into teams, and then sent out on their separate missions - how each team fared would have an impact on the other teams in the final battle of the game.

After some initial awkwardness (to be expected when playing with total strangers - although three of the other players actually game together regularly), our team found its footing: the fighter and my paladin tanked, the rogue sneaked and stabbed, and the druid and warlock provided the firepower.

With each successful encounter our confidence and teamwork improved, so much so that we finished our first two acts early and had time for an extended lunch break while the other tables tried to complete theirs.

Over lunch (and bonding over 80s cartoons and RPGs) I found that that the three players actually game with Dave from my regular Monday group, and that one of them was the brother of a friend from my secondary school!

After lunch we played the second two acts of the game. The final battle was suitably epic: while our group set off to take out a ballista situated on a tower connected to other towers by rope bridges, a battle raged in the courtyard of the castle - the ballista rained projectiles onto the good guys: every round matters! When our initial plan of utilising stealth failed, we winged it and attacked both along the rope bridges and on the ground, the fighter and my paladin drawing missile fire while the other dashed from cover to cover to close within spell range to destroy the ballista.

The game was great fun, but what also made the day rewarding was chatting with gamers both close to my age, and also younger.

The older gamers marveled at how mainstream the hobby had become: back in the 80s when we started playing such a big public event was unimaginable. They told horror stories of having to play with GMs who enjoyed tormenting players at the few gaming stores there were back then, because that was the only way they could find a GM.

The youngest player at the table was a new GM, and is running a homebrewed campaign instead of one of the many adventure paths he could easily buy off the shelf; we old grognards were suitable impressed.

I enjoyed the experience enough to want to attend the next time something like this is organised. Of course, it will also give me a chance to try out the new powers my paladin gained from leveling up after the game...