Page 1247 - Separation Anxiety

I think we railroad a lot because we take a lot of cues from many other kinds of media, where it’s much easier to railroad and ambush characters to create the drama and tension you need. Such has been the case when other media has always outnumbered compelling D&D stories.

With the resurgent overwhelming popularity of D&D content like Critical Role, there’s a lot to examine when it comes to how campaign stories look from the outside versus how they feel from the players’ perspective and the GM’s perspective, and in what ways they’re fundamentally different from the stories we craft in non-interactive mediums. But I digress.

I didn’t play in a Spudventure this week, but GreatDinn had a fun one-shot idea: A Half-Giant, a Tiefling, a Dragonborn, and an Aasimar all quest to find the same deadbeat dad!
GreatDinn Presents: Children of Man (D&D 5e One-Shot): Video

DM: At each balcony of the atrium, a wall of newly formed, glowing crystal has formed. There are still side passages, but the short way down has been completely sealed off.
Ocellus (TS): I guess we weren’t getting out of this without some dungeon crawling.
Silverstream (PP): Sandbar didn’t see or pass by Cozy Glow the first time around… but she totally saw him, didn’t she?
DM: It’s possible.
Yona (FS): I think that means we’ve never seen her fail a skill check. Especially Perception and Insight.
Silverstream (PP): And Deception. And Stealth. And probably a lot of Arcana to pull this off.
DM: Ssspeaking of which… You feel the crystals react to your presence, their glow brightening.
Gallus (RD): Ohhh boy.
DM: You hear an echo of Cozy Glow’s maniacal laughter, like it’s reverberating off the crystals. A beam shoots out of a corner of the room and passes over all of you, making your bodies glow.
Sandbar (AJ): No save?
DM: It’s a wide beam passing over the entire room. One by one, you disappear, teleported to another location.
Smolder (RT): Separated again?
Ocellus (TS): Getting flashbacks to Discord’s maze a bit…
DM: Oof. Uh, I will extremely bear that in mind going forward.