The Goddess Of Fate Summoned Us To Another World To Be Her Champions, But She Won't Tell Us What To Do! - Episode 10 (Isekai Campaign)

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 called Risturan by Bruni, the Goddess of Fate to be her champions. After discovering that the head of the local adventurers' guild was in league with the Cult of the Demon Lord, the group confronted him and threw him in jail after a lengthy battle. After speaking to the Mayor and the Sheriff (Pampanik), they decided to report his crimes to the Baron of Filmelon, the district Adventurers' Guild master, and the council of religions.

Our heroes:

• 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 spark rabbit named Yokai-chan and a wind hawk named Riku-chan, and enjoys the creepy things
• Akuto - wannabe gangster who talks with his fists

Tonight's session:

I began the session by discussing something I should have done in session 0: uncomfortable subjects and triggers. I've seen this come up in various guides to GMing, but didn't think It was as necessary for us, as I was planning on a lighter tone for the session and all my players go to my same church, so I figured we have more or less the same values when it comes to media content. A few sessions ago, when one of my players tortured a mook for information, I thought it might be time to have this discussion. I asked them if anything we had done so far made them uncomfortable, and let them know that if at any time something comes up which is triggering or makes them uncomfortable, to DM me (we play over Discord, as we all live in different states), and I would steer the content away from that.

Next, I informed them of the basics of religion on Risturan, which they probably would have heard from NPCs by now, but which I had only brewed since last week.

The session started with a message from the sheriff, Pampanik, to meet him at the jail. He asked them to help him transport the former guild master, Brod, to Filmelon city so he could face justice there. They agreed and planned on departing the next morning, deciding to rest that day, as they had been fighting almost every day since they arrived in Risturan.

Akuto decided to try stealing some pies to keep his thieving skills sharp. He got caught by Begit, the proprietress of the tavern. She set him to work chopping wood. He put his jacket on a scarecrow and managed to sneak away, but got a smaller portion at dinner that night. However, the next morning when preparing to leave, he found an extra meat pie in his pack.

On the way to Filmelon, they came across a carriage under attack and rushed to defend it. Each one showed themselves well on the battlefield. Sato and Akuto did well in the fight, and as usual, Sato got drenched in her enemies' blood and Akuto went down from damage. Okita was the only one to notice that the sheriff's wagon, which was holding Brod, was approached by bandits and called the alarm so the others were able to prevent their prisoner possibly being freed. She also healed Akuto after he went down, which allowed him to contribute more to the fight. Riku-chan did a lot of work knocking bandits around with wind attacks. Yokai-chan's best moments included finishing off a bandit Akuto was fighting (after which they exchanged a nod of respect between men, er, man and rabbit) and stunning the bandit the carriage's driver was fighting so the driver could get him in an arm lock.

The real star of the fight, though was Tobe. After the shame of missing most of her shots in their fight against Brod, she spent the previous day honing her archery skills. During the fight on the carriage, she was the only member of the Mourning Cloaks with animal handling skills, and hit shot after brilliant shot from horseback like a reincarnated Mongol warrior.

They put the surviving bandits in the jail cart so they could be interrogated in Filmelon. After the battle, the passenger of the carriage emerged and was revealed to be a beautiful ojou-sama.

Lessons:

• Your players will appreciate you talking about content boundaries with them, even if you don't do it right away. Your job is to make sure that everyone feels comfortable playing. You have to give everyone any avenue they can to ask for help and let you know how they are feeling. I hope they trust me to tell me when they are uncomfortable, and that I can live up to that trust.
• I know I already learned this, but when you have multiple mooks, number them so you can keep track of their health more easily. Particularly if you have ten identical thugs.
• A lesson I picked up somewhere else (I honestly can't remember if it was on the Dyskami Discord or r/dmacademy, I learn so much from both places) that I applied today, rather than rolling initiative for each individual foe, you can roll initiative for mobs as a group, then just have them move one after the other at the same time. It helps keep combat moving quickly.
• You can start a campaign with the minimum of a plan and make it up as you go, and keep it up for 10 sessions. And you will have a blast doing it.

Thanks for reading! 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!

Past episodes: Episode 0, Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9