Isekai Campaign Session 5 Report

A shorter session tonight. One of my players was recovering from surgery.

Our cast:

• Sato - carries a katana and dreams of being a samurai
• Tobe - carries a bow and enjoys tracking and sneaking
• Okita - has two companion animals, a wind hawk and a spark rabbit, and enjoys the creepy things
• Akuto - wannabe gangster who talks with his fists

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Previously on The Goddess Of Fate Summoned Us To Another World To Be Her Champions, But She Won't Tell Us What To Do!:

Four Japanese High School students were hit by a truck and brought to a magical world by Bruni, the Goddess of Fate to be her champions. After rescuing a girl from goblins, they were brought to the adventurer's guild in town by her father to report the appearance of a new dungeon (crypts of ancient demon lords, full of miasma which spawns monsters). They were brushed off because they weren't adventurers, so they registered as adventurers and brought a more experienced adventurer, Pezel the cat woman, to supervise the dungeon inspection.

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Tonight's session:

Everyone went to the shrine in town to speak to Bruni. The girls (that is, everyone but Akuto, who was looking for something to steal) prayed to her and had a vision where she praised their heroism and explained that, as the goddess of fate, she knew all they would do, and had chosen them because she knew they would accomplish her purposes by simply living as they wished. She used the example of butterflies and hurricanes, that they were her butterflies, and the flapping of their wings would cause her hurricanes (which is why her symbol is the butterfly).

They fought a bunch of goblins in the dungeon. As they exited the dungeon, they were met by the sight of four men in robes. Who could they be and what could they want!? (We couldn't finish that encounter because two of my players were "wilting" as they put it. I understand; surgery takes a toll)

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Lessons:

• When you have a bunch of identical monsters attacking, it helps a lot to label them so you can keep track of initiative order and health. I numbered them before, but I changed my gobbo art and didn't have time to add labels. A mistake I won't make again.
• You can stop a session anywhere. I had another idea of where to stop, but finishing with these men in robes set up a good cliffhanger.
• I tried a few new things this week. The first was inspired by last week, when I noticed that when my players were asking NPCs questions, I had to flounder around as I thought up answers (as I'm building this world as they explore it). So I asked them to come up with questions that their characters would want to ask about the world, either from their goddess or from other NPCs. This allowed me to come up with answers ahead of time, and knew the sorts of things they want to know about my world. For example, now I know I need to come up with some laws that they have to keep. Also a desert kingdom beyond the mountains, which sounds more fun to create than laws. I also learned that some details, which are trivial to me, are crucial to some players.
• The second thing I tried, which was inspired by a post I read on r/dmacademy, was I asked one of my players to describe an NPC, the priestess at the shrine. She took right to it and gave a good description.
• The third thing I tried, because I keep taking forever to write down initiative, was to follow the instructions for writing down initiative given here: https://theangrygm.com/manage-combat-like-a-dolphin/. It really sped up the process.
• I keep a spreadsheet I call my "GM Screen" with damage tables for my characters and NPCs and monsters. I used to have to flip between that and my map, but today I kept both of them open in separate windows. That also saved a lot of time during combat.

Shorter session, but still fun. Join us next week for another exciting episode of The Goddess Of Fate Summoned Us To Another World To Be Her Champions, But She Won't Tell Us What To Do!