LisboaCon 2016 - aerlis, oeiras - March 12, 2016
galLery
the adventure
A Dungeons & Dragons (fifth edition) adventure in which four parties of adventures united to defeat a common enemy - the Dracolich Dretchroyaster - and recover the Diamond Staff of Chomylla, before the Dracolich can seize all the powers of this magical item.
In game terms, each party entered the dungeon by a different room and the players had to defeat the various threats as they made their way into the dungeon, looking for one of the four idols of Bhaal, which deactivated the protections surrounding the Dracolich.
Each table nominated their team captain, who was gifted with a telepathic circlet (also known as access to a private chat room) by way of which he could communicate with the other captains.
Each team had their own Dungeon Master, and the whole room was coordinated, and assisted, by a Head DM.
The characters were previously organised by table, so as to have balanced parties (which also depended on which area the party started) and the players only had to decide which character they preferred.
Every player was also gifted with a key-ring of a symbol connected with their character, such as weapons, holy symbols or spells.
In our humble opinion, as coordinators, the session went quite well, which is pretty gratifying after all the hard work put into it.
We had a full house, with 24 players (six per table), which included beginners as well as other DMs, from the very young to the more mature.
We were very happy to see that all the parties (even those who weren't acquainted before this game) had excellent dynamics between players, regardless of their experience, age or mother language, even having developed some personal backgrounds between characters on the spot.
Good humour was also the word of the day, with all the players enjoying (more or less) the horrors that were being thrown at them.
All the players made very good use of their particular abilities and demonstrated a capacity to change tactics when necessary (sometimes, combat isn't the best alternative...), but not even the very experienced managed to avoid certain trapped disasters.
It was pretty awesome to see the interaction between tables, with players celebration each other's victories, or mourning each other's losses. Of course, some tables had more luck than others (seven Critical Hits in one afternoon is quite an epic achievement), and there a case of misuse of a certain giant cephalopod, but overall everyone survived the ordeal in one piece... Sort of...
The team captains kept regular contact through the chat - I mean, telepathic circlets - and even used them for some telepathic translation between tables!
By the end of the afternoon, when all parties managed to find their Bhaal idols, the team captains retired to analyse all the character sheets and re-organize the tables according to each group's final task.
One team was in charge of deactivating the protections surrounding the Dracolich, using the four idols, another had to battle the myriad of undead attracted by the negative energy of the Dracolich, the third one had to defeat the Dracolich itself and the last one had the lovely surprise of having to fight the Dracolich's simulacrum.
Because, two Dracoliches are always better than one...
The final battle was certainly epic and there was a great celebration when both Dracoliches, and the assortment of skeletons, cultists and the sort, were finally defeated.
To wrap up, we can only be sorry there wasn't more time for the players to explore all the hidden corners of the dungeon, but unfortunately we were a bit short on time, since the room was going to be used by a LARP session afterwards.
In our next session we hope to find a place where we can be more comfortable (time and space-wise) and preferably a bit cooler, since the afternoon was quite warm.
We can only thank all the participants, the Dungeon Masters who guided them through this adventure, the LisboaCon 2016 organisers and the Roleplaying Games area coordinators in particular - Lisbon Boardgamers Group and the Lisbon Roleplayers Group - for giving us the space and allowing us to organize what, we hope, was a fun afternoon for all involved!
In game terms, each party entered the dungeon by a different room and the players had to defeat the various threats as they made their way into the dungeon, looking for one of the four idols of Bhaal, which deactivated the protections surrounding the Dracolich.
Each table nominated their team captain, who was gifted with a telepathic circlet (also known as access to a private chat room) by way of which he could communicate with the other captains.
Each team had their own Dungeon Master, and the whole room was coordinated, and assisted, by a Head DM.
The characters were previously organised by table, so as to have balanced parties (which also depended on which area the party started) and the players only had to decide which character they preferred.
Every player was also gifted with a key-ring of a symbol connected with their character, such as weapons, holy symbols or spells.
In our humble opinion, as coordinators, the session went quite well, which is pretty gratifying after all the hard work put into it.
We had a full house, with 24 players (six per table), which included beginners as well as other DMs, from the very young to the more mature.
We were very happy to see that all the parties (even those who weren't acquainted before this game) had excellent dynamics between players, regardless of their experience, age or mother language, even having developed some personal backgrounds between characters on the spot.
Good humour was also the word of the day, with all the players enjoying (more or less) the horrors that were being thrown at them.
All the players made very good use of their particular abilities and demonstrated a capacity to change tactics when necessary (sometimes, combat isn't the best alternative...), but not even the very experienced managed to avoid certain trapped disasters.
It was pretty awesome to see the interaction between tables, with players celebration each other's victories, or mourning each other's losses. Of course, some tables had more luck than others (seven Critical Hits in one afternoon is quite an epic achievement), and there a case of misuse of a certain giant cephalopod, but overall everyone survived the ordeal in one piece... Sort of...
The team captains kept regular contact through the chat - I mean, telepathic circlets - and even used them for some telepathic translation between tables!
By the end of the afternoon, when all parties managed to find their Bhaal idols, the team captains retired to analyse all the character sheets and re-organize the tables according to each group's final task.
One team was in charge of deactivating the protections surrounding the Dracolich, using the four idols, another had to battle the myriad of undead attracted by the negative energy of the Dracolich, the third one had to defeat the Dracolich itself and the last one had the lovely surprise of having to fight the Dracolich's simulacrum.
Because, two Dracoliches are always better than one...
The final battle was certainly epic and there was a great celebration when both Dracoliches, and the assortment of skeletons, cultists and the sort, were finally defeated.
To wrap up, we can only be sorry there wasn't more time for the players to explore all the hidden corners of the dungeon, but unfortunately we were a bit short on time, since the room was going to be used by a LARP session afterwards.
In our next session we hope to find a place where we can be more comfortable (time and space-wise) and preferably a bit cooler, since the afternoon was quite warm.
We can only thank all the participants, the Dungeon Masters who guided them through this adventure, the LisboaCon 2016 organisers and the Roleplaying Games area coordinators in particular - Lisbon Boardgamers Group and the Lisbon Roleplayers Group - for giving us the space and allowing us to organize what, we hope, was a fun afternoon for all involved!
event video
Soon...